Janet Cardiff was born in 1957 in Brussels, Ontario and currently lives and works in Lethbridge, Alberta and Berlin, Germany. She graduated from Queen?s University, in 1980 (B.F.A.) and the University of Alberta in 1983 (M.V.A.). She won the National Gallery of Canada?s Millenium Prize 2001 for her work Forty-Part Motet.
Over the past fifteen years, Janet Cardiff and her husband George Bures Miller have created separately and together, sound pieces and visual installations of increasing sophistication that change the way we relate to our immediate surroundings. Their characteristic, disturbing manipulations of reality in personalized spaces are rapidly earning these two artists a significant reputation both in and outside the arts community. For the 49th Venice Biennale, Cardiff and Miller collaborated on The Paradise Institute, an installation that transcends the familiar physicality of space by combining sculpture, performance, video and sound. For this work the two artists won the Special Award at the 2001 Venice Biennale.
Janet Cardiff studied at Queen?s University in Kingston, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree then a Masters degree in Visual Arts at the University of Alberta. She initially worked with printmaking, silkscreen and photography but soon branched out to more experimental techniques using sound. She collaborates with her husband, Bures Miller, to produce sound installations and audio walks that have been presented in major international exhibitions. In 2001, the installation Forty?Part Motet was awarded the Millenium Prize at the National Gallery of Canada and the same year Cardiff and Miller became the first Canadians to win the prestigious Venice Biennale for the installation piece The Paradise Institute.