Sarah Biscarra Dilley (b. 1986, unceded Nisenan land, unratified Treaty “J” region) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, educator and member of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash tribe.
Their practice is grounded in collaboration across experiences, communities, and place. Relating land and beings throughout nitspu tiłhin ktitʸu, the State of California, and places joined by shared water, their written and visual texts connect extractive industries, absent treaties, and enclosure to emphasize movement, relational landscapes and embodied sovereignties.
Their text-based, curatorial, educational, and visual work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Sites of engagement include: Smithsonian Institute, SFMOMA, University of California (UCOP, Berkeley, Davis, Santa Barbara), California Polytechnic University (San Luis Obispo), University of Minnesota Press, Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, University of Queensland Art Gallery, California Historical Society, SOMArts Cultural Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Toronto Free Gallery, Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), Artspace (Tāmaki Makaurau), Vancouver Art Gallery, San Francisco State University, and Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).
While much of their foundations are shaped by body, land and the worlds in and around us, they began their undergraduate studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, NM), have a BA in Urban Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute, an MA in Native American Studies from University of California, Davis, where they are a PhD Candidate in Native American Studies. They work as Curator of Indigenous Programs and Community Engagement at Forge Project, situated on the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok, the Peoples of the Waters that Are Never Still. tstʔɨnɨ yatsʔitʔɨnɨsmu tiłhinkʔtitʸu
