CV for

Nancy Bleck

Nancy Bleck is an award-winning international artist working with photography, film, video, and cross-cultural collaboration. She was recently honoured with the YWCA ‘Women of Distinction' award in the category of Arts, Culture and Design, for her work on Uts'am - Witness  (a project spanning 10 years). She has lived in Berlin, Prague, Utrecht, Toronto, and currently Vancouver.

Her work is in the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, permanent collections, The Squamish Nation Elders Centre, Band Office and Cultural Centre, as well as many private collections across Europe, China and North America.

Her inquiry explores notions of the witness, nomadic subjectivity, ecology, embodied ethics, with an emphasis on collaboration and social change. Nancy is co-founder of the Uts'am - Witness project, 1997-2007, together with Hereditary Chief Bill Williams of the Squamish Nation, the late mountaineer John Clarke, and the Roundhouse Community Centre, where she became the first artist-in-residence in 1997. The Squamish Nation through a traditional naming ceremony recognised her in 2001, with the Coast Salish name Slanay Sp'ak'wus.

Employed as an arts instructor at the Emily Carr University since 2006, Nancy has taught; 'Community Arts Practices', 'Directed Projects: Themes on Sustainability', 'Digital Imaging', 'Telling Story through Photography', 'Image & Text',  'Feminism and Beyond', ‘Senior Photo', ‘Senior Studio', 'Professional Practices', 'Dialogues with Photography' and 'Feminism and Social Change'.

Her work has received two Canada Council awards in 1993 and 2003, nomination for Van-City's 'Ethics in Action' award, 1998, ‘Best Cultural Event', Tourism Canada, 2000, and contributed to the 'Art for Change' millennium scholarship foundation hosted at the Nation Gallery in Ottawa, 2002.

She holds an MA in Fine Arts, from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (HKU) The Netherlands, 2005, and a BFA from the Emily Carr University, Vancouver, 2000.