About

Alana (Al) Bartol (she/they) is an interdisciplinary Canadian artist whose work explores resource extraction, ecological change, and more-than-human relations. Longlisted for Canada’s Sobey Art Award in 2019 and 2021, she holds an MFA from Wayne State University (Detroit) and a BFA (Honours with Distinction) from the University of Windsor. Working across performance, drawing, installation, participatory art, video, photography, as well as hybrid and evolving forms, her recent work increasingly considers embodiment, desire, and queer ecology.

Alana's practice is grounded in sustained research, site-responsive inquiry, collaboration, and reciprocal exchange. Rather than approaching research solely as a means of gathering information, she uses artistic methodologies to create conditions for different kinds of knowledge and relationships to emerge. Humour, absurdity, institutional mimicry, and bureaucratic language frequently enter her work as ways of troubling dominant narratives around extraction, responsibility, environmental stewardship, and repair.

Her work has been presented nationally and internationally in exhibitions, festivals, and public spaces, including Walter Phillips Gallery, Remai Modern, Plug In ICA, Art Gallery of Alberta, Art Windsor-Essex, Dunlop Art Gallery, Yukon Arts Centre, Museo de la Ciudad (Guadalajara, Mexico), and DiverseWorks (USA). Her video work has screened internationally, including in Colombia, Argentina, Belgium, Turkey, Hong Kong, Romania, the United States, and at the Berlin Feminist Film Festival.

Residencies have taken Alana across Canada, including to Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and internationally through the Santa Fe Art Institute (USA), the Canadian Forces Artists Program (Latvia), and the ARCUS Project (Japan). Her video work is distributed by Vtape, the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, and Video Pool Media Arts Centre.

Alongside her studio practice, Alana is an Assistant Professor at Alberta University of the Arts and works as a mentor, curator, and collaborator. These roles are interconnected with her artistic practice and an ongoing investment in reciprocity, knowledge sharing, and how artistic knowledge can be produced and circulated collectively. Her mentorship includes work with the Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society (AMAAS) one-to-one grant writing program, alongside teaching, curatorial projects, workshops, and other collaborative initiatives.

Alana is a white, queer settler artist with Danish, German, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. She has lived in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta), in Treaty 7 territory, since 2015, on the ancestral lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the traditional territories of the Tsuut’ina Nation, the Stoney Nakoda Nations, and the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3.

Her work and research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Calgary Arts Development, and other public arts funders and awards. She is grateful to the artists, curators, technicians, administrators, writers, funders, collaborators, and communities (human and more-than-human) who make her work possible.

Contact
hello@alanabartol.com
Subscribe to my newsletter to receive occasional emails on exhibitions and projects.

Photo: Bryce Krynski