Simranpreet Anand

Simranpreet Anand is an artist, curator, and cultural worker creating and working on the unceded territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo peoples (Surrey, BC) and the lands of the Anishinaabeg – The Three Fire Confederacy of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, as well as the Wyandot Nation (Ann Arbor, MI). She holds a BFA Honours in Visual Arts along with a second major in Psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Her art practice interrogates the so-called neutral audience in multicultural society. To accomplish this, she uses materials —particularly textiles, language, performative gestures, and photographs —that resonate beyond the typical art gallery context. Anand’s works are meant for multiple audiences with different frames of cultural and/or artistic reference. Her practice is informed by familial and community histories, often engaging materials and concepts drawn from the histories of Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora and the ways in which they have been disrupted by colonialism and forced migration. The reclamation of cultural practice in her work interrogates colonial theft, cultural propaganda, and forces of global capitalism.

She has been awarded the William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists (2021) and the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize (2023). Simranpreet is committed to a socially engaged practice, having worked on community engagement and education projects with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, the Evergreen Cultural Centre, documenta 14, the Hatch Art Gallery, and the Surrey Art Gallery.