Born in 1946 in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Basia Irland received her BFA from University of Illinois in 1968, and her MFA from the University of Massachusetts in 1974. She was a Canadian landed immigrant from 1969-1985, when she joined the faculty of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico.

Basia Irland is a sculptor and installation artist, a poet and book artist, and an activist in water issues. The interdisciplinary nature of her work and its impacts in fields other than art has been recognized by grants and awards from a number of agencies and foundations not usually found in an artist's resume: the President's Council on Sustainable Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Foundation, the McCune Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. She received a Frank Waters Foundation Literary Award (1995). In 1994, she was awarded a Fulbright Senior research Fellowship to continue her water researches in Southeast Asia. The University of New Mexico honored Irland as an educator and artist by appointing her to the prestigious post of Faculty Scholar (1993). She has received UNM Grants in Aid of Research in 1999, 1994, and 1985; and four Research and Creative Work Grants from the College of Fine Arts at UNM.

In 1999, Irland produced the documentary, A Gathering of Waters: The Rio Grande, Source to Sea, based on a five-year, grassroots project which she planned and directed. Utilizing collaborative, community-based activities along the length of the river, the project emphasized the rich diversity of the upper and lower river basins and enhanced public understanding of the river's relationship to the cultural and environmental issues of its adjacent communities. The documentary was seen on PBS and is distributed by The Video Project: Film for a Safe and Sustainable World.

Irland's work has been shown in over twenty-five one-person exhibitions, and more than 100 group and individual exhibitions. It is represented in numerous private and public collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.; Chicago Art Institute; University of Massachusetts Art Museum at Amherst; the Ruth and Marvin Sachner Archives of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami, Florida; National Archives of Canada, Ottowa; Albuquerque Museum; Capitol Arts Foundation of New Mexico, Santa Fe; and the University of New Mexico Art Museum and the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico.

Irland is a frequent speaker at conferences and symposia that explore issues of art, environment, and water policy. A short listing of conferences indicates the range of her work and interests: "Between Nature," a conference at Lancaster University, Lancaster, England; Eco Design Arts Conference, School of Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene; First Assembly for Water Planning in the Middle Rio Grande, Albuquerque; and "The Bonds Between Women and Water," a conference at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, as well as numerous exhibition venues including Bath, England; Bergen, Norway; and Managua, Nicaragua.

-- KATHLEEN STEWART HOWE