Selena Kearney is a photographer and performance artist raised on the Chehalis Reservation in Washington State. Working across photography, performance, archives, and institutional collections, her practice considers Indigenous presence and the systems through which knowledge and representation are produced.

Since 2014, Kearney has participated in Coast Salish canoe culture and has served as skipper for Spirit of the Raven, the elder’s canoe from Suquamish, learning alongside Suquamish Elder Marilyn Wandrey. Grounded in responsibility, this experience informs how she approaches art, collaboration, and generational knowledge.

Kearney’s projects include a portrait archive of Chehalis people, the photographic series Object/Ritual, and Shadowy Evidence, which uses material interventions into historical photographs to redirect the archive toward the history of Indian boarding schools. Her performance Speak to the House, Speak to the Object developed through research with the Field Museum’s Coast Salish collections. In 2026, Kearney developed work as a vocalist within John Cage’s Apartment House 1776 with Detroit Opera and Cranbrook Art Museum, extending her investigation of Indigenous presence and the structures that frame performance.

Her monograph, Every Object Has a Ritual, was published by Minor Matters in 2023. Her work is held in collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library, Stanford University’s Bowes Art and Architecture Library, and the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. Kearney’s work and performances have been covered by The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian, The Seattle Times, and Detroit Metro Times. She received an Honorable Mention for the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Snider Prize in 2025 and will be an artist in residence at Ragdale in 2027.

Kearney holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a BA from The Evergreen State College, and a Certificate in Fine Art Photography from Photographic Center Northwest