Tammy Salzl

Tammy Salzl was born in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton Canada), into a gigantic dysfunctional family with 18 aunts and uncles, 42 cousins, and barely one parent. Growing up she spent her summers on prairie farms being tortured as a city slicker who couldn't ride a horse and felt bad for the chickens. Retreating into art and stories and animals was the salvation she didn't find in the fundamentalist religion she was periodically thrown into. Salzl completed an MFA in Studio Arts at Montréal's Concordia University. The tales she creates blend whimsy, melancholy and weirdness to embody what it means to be human. She has been awarded several grants and residencies in Canada and internationally, and uses them to make her beautiful parasites: work that enters the eyes through beauty, sinks to the gut with uneasy questions, then rises to the brain to fester over time.

Salzl has previously made experimental films that were screened in several public art galleries and film festivals, including the Edmonton International Film Festival. Making Beauty is her first narrative production.