Tanya Mars, retired Senior Lecturer, discusses her less conventional road to becoming a performance artist and then senior lecturer and program director at UTSC. Her story begins in the 1960s in the American Midwest and from there to Montreal and university in 1967. She describes her work in the 70s and 80s as begin an advocate for second wave feminism and as a teacher in the 1990s dealing with the “backlash” to feminism, explaining that “feminism was really a bad word.” Tanya came to UTSC in 1995 at a time when she recalls the studio programme and campus in general were small and everyone knew each other. She talks about how the programme has grown and changed over the years and the continuing challenges faced by female artists, academics, and students.
Researcher: Asha Mattis
Date: June 3, 2015
