Emerging Artists

Nahanni McKay

2022

  • Visual Arts
  • Banff

McKay’s creative practice utilizes photography, digital media, as well as performances in the landscape to explore pressing questions related to environmental change. The work often considers the ways landscape and animals have been depicted historically, particularly in the context of national parks, in order to investigate the complex interrelationship between colonial power structures, identity and ecological degradation and loss.

– Emerging Artist adjudicators

Nahanni McKay is a Metis-Cree artist and photographer based on Treaty 7 Territory. Born and raised in Banff, her creative practice has focused on National Parks in Canada and the human impact on surrounding natural environments as well as the decolonization of land. Nahanni sees herself as a wildlife photographer but the only animals she photographs are ghosts. She uses her photography to bring awareness of the need to coexist with wildlife to prevent further harm to the land we reside on.

Recent exhibits include McKay’s show Hole 8 at the European Cultural Centre’s exhibit Personal Structures, Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy (April – November 2022). The exhibition coincides with the 59th Venice Biennale and represents McKay’s first international exhibit.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal 2022

  • Landscapes Are Boring
  • Decolonize The Mountains
  • Halfbreed
  • Hole 8

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