The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Master of Fine Arts programs in Studio Arts (MFASA) and Creative Writing (MFACW) are delighted to present a lecture by multi-disciplinary artist Tanya Lukin Linklater (Native Villages of Afognak and Port Lions) and a response by poet Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota). This event on Sunday, January 8, is a collaborative offering from the MFACW and MFASA programs and will be livestreamed only (no in-person event).

Tanya Lukin Linklater (Native Villages of Afognak and Port Lions, Alaska) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work engages installation, performance, art writing, printmaking, film, photography, and choreography. She is a mentor in the MFASA program. Linklater has received many awards, including the Art Writing Award from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Visual Art, and an artist residency award at The Wexner Center for the Arts.

Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota) is a poet, IAIA alum, and mentor in the MFACW program. She is the author of the poetry collections Chromosomory and WHEREAS. Her work has appeared in POETRY Magazine, The New York Times, The American Poet, The American Reader, The Kenyon Review, and BOMB. She has received many awards, including the NACF National Artist Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize in the UK.

MFA in Studio Arts

The Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts is designed as an interdisciplinary two-year program with two intensive nine-day residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. At the end of each residency, students are paired with a mentor with whom they will one-on-one during the semester. Mentors are prominent Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists recognized for artistic excellence in their fields. Students can work with several mentors to develop their creative work over two years. Art History courses complement mentorships. By engaging with complex histories and examining art’s function in contemporary multicultural societies, the MFASA program supports students in pursuing critical lines of inquiry and developing their individual art practices.

The deadline to apply for the 2023 academic year is Jan. 13 by 5 pm (MST).

MFA in Creative Writing

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.

The deadline to apply for the 2023 academic year is Feb. 1 by 5 pm (MST).