WINNIPEG, MB – The University of Winnipeg is pleased to announce that acclaimed artist and compelling throat singer from Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq, will be the fourth speaker in The Axworthy Distinguished Lecture Series on Social Justice and the Public Good. Her lecture will take place on Friday, March 17 at 7:00 pm on campus in Riddell Hall, and will be free and open to the public. Seating is on a first come, first serve basis. No tickets or reservations are required.
Her lecture will focus on the importance of the arts for public life/the public good, including especially how Inuk and Indigenous artists contribute uniquely to conversations about justice, including processes of reconciliation.
The Axworthy Distinguished Lecture Series on Social Justice and the Public Good invites front-ranking researchers, social commentators and political leaders to The University of Winnipeg to deliver free lectures open to the public. Axworthy Distinguished Lecturers bring interdisciplinary perspectives on social justice issues involving gender, religion and secularism, Indigeneity, language, ethnicity and race, ecology, and economy. Keynote lecturers have included: philosopher and political activist, Dr. Cornel West; renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall; and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
The Axworthy Lecture Series is housed in the Centre for the Liberal Arts and Secular Society (CLASS).
The Axworthy Lecture Series was established to honour Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, who served as President of the University of Winnipeg from 2004-14.
Tanya Tagaq – Short Bio
Recently appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada, Tanya Tagaq challenges static ideas of genre and culture, and contend with themes of environmentalism, human rights and post-colonial issues. Her music and performance are a complex, exhilarating, howling protest that links lack of respect for women’s rights to lack of respect for the planet, to lack of respect for Indigenous rights.
The Arctic-born artist is an improvisational performer, avant-garde composer and experimental recording artist who won the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for an album called Animism, a work that disrupted the music world in Canada and beyond with its powerfully original vision. Her critically acclaimed follow-up, Retribution, is an even more musically aggressive, more aggressively political, more challenging, more spine tingling, more powerful masterpiece.
Questions about the Tagaq lecture should be directed to: events@uwinnipeg.ca
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MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Senior Communications Specialist, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
