Emily Tanner-McLean (b. 1983) grew up on Long Island, NY, received her Bachelor of Studio Arts from New York University (2005), and has been based in Seattle since 2014. A lifelong artist, she had an adjacent career in arts administration and development for 13 years before returning to her art practice in 2018. Since then, she has exhibited in numerous group and solo shows, completed two residencies, received regional grants and press coverage, and has been awarded public art commissions for temporary and permanent works, including earning the first permanent video artwork installation at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, commissioned by the Port of Seattle.

Emily’s work is deeply influenced by her coming of age at a time when media’s grip over culture exponentially grew with the rise of social media and smartphones in the 2000s. Having directly witnessed the 9/11 attacks at 18 and the U.S. media’s subsequent distortion of facts that contributed to the growth of an ultranationalist narrative of America, while simultaneously observing a then-nascent Facebook take hold on college campuses, she has long asked herself how digital media, video in particular, can be broken down and deployed as a means of supporting consciousness.