Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk scholar and independent curator who holds the University Research Chair in Indigenous Art History and Community Engagement at Concordia University, which is seated on unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation,who are recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters of Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. This area is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples.
Heather is the Co-Director of the Initiative for Indigenous Futures Cluster (IIF) in the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology with Professor Jason Edward Lewis. Through Milieux, Igloliorte works with collaborators and students to explore how Indigenous people are imagining the future of their families and communities. Her teaching and research interests center on Inuit and other Native North American visual and material culture, circumpolar art studies, performance and media art, the global exhibition of Indigenous arts and culture, and issues of colonization, sovereignty, resistance and resurgence, and she is the current Lead or Co-Investigator on several funded research projects related to this work.
Igloliorte currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, working on the development of the new national Inuit Art Centre; the Board of Directors for North America’s largest Indigenous art historical association, the Native North American Art Studies Association; the Editorial Advisory Committee of Inuit Art Quarterly; and the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Heather has previously served as an Executive Member of the Board of Directors for the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective (2005 – 2011) and as the President of artist-run-centre Gallery 101 (Ottawa, 2009 – 2011) in addition to other advisories, juries and councils.