Artist Statement
My artistic practice stems from a desire to communicate and to connect, which I pursue through text, performance, recording, and collaboration. I consider my primary creative role to be that of a poet and I think a poet's job is to observe and report back. I see this as a professional responsibility, a personal privilege, and a means to participate in the world. My work centres around related and recurring questions: Why do we come together and what wedges us apart? Can we love more and suffer less? How do we make meaning in a society consumed with capital and power? Will we recognize our interdependence in time to save ourselves?
Biography
Tanya Davis is a writer and interdisciplinary artist based in rural Epekwitk / Prince Edward Island. Since releasing her first album in 2006, she's been working primarily in music and literary performance and occasionally in theatre, audio art, and film. She has released 4 records and two books, including a hardcover published by HarperCollins of the widely popular videopoem How to be Alone, a collaboration with filmmaker Andrea Dorfman. In 2020, also with Dorfman, she released a follow up called How to be at Home, produced by the NFB as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Tanya was the 2011/12 Halifax Poet Laureate and the Artist-in-Residence at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Medicine in 2016. She creates and delivers content specific to organizations, conferences, and events, and has taken commissions for CBC Radio, The National Film Board, and The Canada Games, among others. Tanya also works as a freelance editor, arts administrator, and project manager. She is currently the Poet Laureate of PEI.