Tania Willard. Photo credit Billie Jean Gabriel photography
The Faculty of Arts is pleased to announce that acclaimed artist, curator and educator Tania Willard has been appointed Director of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery for an initial five-year term, alongside an appointment as an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, beginning in January 2026.
“I am thrilled that Tania Willard will be joining the Faculty of Arts at UBC Vancouver,” said Dean of Arts Clare Haru Crowston. “A highly accomplished visual artist and curator, Tania is internationally recognized for her work and has made a remarkable impact as the inaugural director of the UBC Okanagan Art Gallery. Her leadership will bring a bold and transformative vision to the Belkin, expanding opportunities for engagement with communities on campus, across BC, and beyond. As the first Indigenous director of the Belkin Gallery, Tania’s appointment marks a significant milestone in advancing the Faculty of Arts’ and UBC’s commitment to Indigenous reconciliation and resurgence.”
Tania Willard, an accomplished and award-winning mixed Secwépemc and settler artist, curator, and educator, joins the Belkin from UBC Okanagan in Syilx territory (Kelowna, BC). She is the inaugural director of the UBC Okanagan Gallery, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, and the director of UBCO’s Indigenous Art Intensive, an annual program that gathers students, artists, curators, writers, and scholars to explore contemporary discourse in Indigenous art-making. A recipient of the 2024-2025 Doris and Jack Shadbolt Fellowship in the Humanities, Willard is widely recognized for her work in land-based Indigenous-led art research and creation practices. Her research and creative processes are informed by community engagement, cultural connections, and the intersections of Indigenous and other artistic traditions. Often centering Secwépemc aesthetics, language, and land, her work explores the tensions between the contemporary and the traditional.
Willard’s contributions have been supported by leading funding agencies, including the Canada Council for the Arts, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Ruth Foundation, Canada Foundation for Innovation, First Peoples Cultural Council, BC Arts Council, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, NDN Collective, and the UBC Indigenous Strategic Initiatives Fund. She also leads collaborative projects such as BUSH Gallery, a conceptual space for land-based art and action led by Indigenous artists, reinforcing her commitment to art as an Indigenous resurgent act.
In collaboration with the Belkin’s staff, Willard will establish the gallery’s overall artistic vision and operation, including its exhibitions, programs, collections and acquisitions, with its present focus on acquiring work by women IBPOC artists. “The Belkin is hugely looking forward to Tania Willard’s leadership and the exciting directions her vision will develop institutionally, curatorially and pedagogically,” said Melanie O’Brian, Acting Director/Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. “This is a significant moment for the Belkin and for the arts ecology writ large.”
In accepting the position Willard says she is honoured to be selected to work with the staff and faculty of the Belkin and AHVA in Musqueam territory and plans to focus on art that pushes the boundaries, programming that addresses equity and access as well as strategies for improving the infrastructure for collections and looking to the future of the cultural district at UBC Vancouver campus.
The Belkin is fortunate to have worked with Willard in the past through exhibitions Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools (2013), Hexsa’am: To Be Here Always (2019), Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts (2020) and the current exhibition Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital, alongside artist talks, studio visits, performances, and representation in the university’s permanent art collection.
Willard received an MFA from UBC Okanagan in 2018. Her curatorial work includes Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun at the UBC Museum of Anthropology (2016), co-curated with Karen Duffek, and the touring exhibition, Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture (2012-14), co-curated with Kathleen Ritter. She was a curator in residence with grunt gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery. In 2016, Willard received the Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art from the Hnatyshyn Foundation, the 2020 Shadbolt Foundation VIVA Award, and was named a 2022 Forge Project Fellow. Her work with BUSH gallery was recognized through the Ruth Foundation for the Arts Future Studies award (2022). Willard’s artistic projects have been exhibited widely and collections of her work include the Vancouver Art Gallery, Kamloops Art Gallery, Burnaby Art Gallery and more.
The Faculty of Arts and the Belkin also take this opportunity to thank Melanie O’Brian for graciously and adeptly stepping in as Acting Director for the past 4 years, stewarding the gallery and its staff through this time of transition with a strong curatorial program and exceptional leadership. Melanie O’Brian will continue to guide the Belkin’s curatorial program in her role as Associate Director/Curator.
