Image: Remai Modern, Saskatoon
Remai Modern will present Tanya Lukin Linklater’s 'Storm song' from August 28 to December 3, 2026, in the Level 3 Galleria in Saskatoon. The site-responsive installation is commissioned for 'Carried by rivers, held by lands' and brings together sound, textiles and places of rest in a work oriented toward the South Saskatchewan River, which the museum’s materials identify as kisiskâciwani-sîpiy.
According to the museum, 'Storm song' extends Lukin Linklater’s ongoing consideration of weather, temporality and embodied knowledges. The installation is described as centring Indigenous women’s knowledge and lived experiences of weather, land and memory across the Great Plains. Its setting in the Gallery Lounge on Level 3 places the work in direct relation to the riverfront view, with the audio and material elements designed around the conditions and rhythms of the landscape outside.
The work includes a narrative audio component that will be presented at the same time each day. At other times, an ambient audio composition will occupy the space, drawing on environmental sound and the temporal rhythms of the prairie landscape. Remai Modern says the installation invites visitors into sustained attention to the river, the land and the changing conditions that shape them.
Textile works, wooden benches and other places of rest form a second part of the installation. The museum notes that the materials and forms draw on elements that recur throughout Lukin Linklater’s practice, including all-weather canvas, wool blankets, kohkom scarves and forms drawn from the prairie ecosystem. The artist describes these recurring elements as 'felt structures,' which she characterizes as 'atmospheres that hold us.'
The exhibition page connects the project to ongoing conversations and relationships with Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Joely BigEagle-Kequahtooway and Yvonne Tiger. It also situates Lukin Linklater’s work within a broader practice that spans video, works on paper, installation and dance in museums, with sensation, embodied inquiry, scores, rehearsal and relation to ancestral belongings, Indigenous communities and weather shaping her approach.
Remai Modern’s materials note that Lukin Linklater has shown at venues including Aichi Triennale, Camden Art Centre, Dia Art Foundation, Gwangju Biennale, New Museum Triennial, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SITE SANTA FE and Toronto Biennial of Art. Her solo exhibition 'Crested' was presented by Portikus in Frankfurt in 2026, and her recent publications include 'Slow Scrape' and contributions to several art catalogues. Her Sugpiaq homelands are in the Kodiak archipelago of Alaska.
'Carried by rivers, held by lands' runs at Remai Modern’s Connect Gallery from July 31 to December 6, 2026. The project is curated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, co-executive director and CEO, and Tarah Hogue, adjunct curator (Indigenous Art), at Remai Modern in Saskatoon, together with Maria Lind, director of Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna. The exhibition is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Embassy of Sweden.
