Tanya Mars is a multi-disciplinary performance artist who has been actively involved in the Canadian artist-run movement since the mid-70s. She was a founding member and past Director of Powerhouse Gallery/La Centrale in Montreal, which was the first women's art gallery in Canada. During the 70's and 80's she was a member and secretary of the Association of National Non-Profit Artist-Run Centres (1976-1989), a national lobby group for artist-run centres. She was the editor of their publication, Parallelogramme for 13 years.She is currently an active member of the 7a*11d collective which produces a biannual International Festival of Performance Art in Toronto. She is past president and member of FADO, a centre for the promotion and presentation of Canadian and international performance artists. She is in the process of co-editing a book on the history of Canadian women performance artists with Johanna Householder of the Ontario College of Art and Design, which will be published by YYZ Press in the spring of 2004. She recently received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and received a Chalmers Fellowship for her upcoming performance, The Tyranny of Bliss, which will be presented by FADO in Toronto and at the Hamilton Art Gallery in June of 2004.In addition to the University of Toronto at Scarborough, and St. George, she has taught performance, video and feminist criticism at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Ontario College of Art and Design. She has exhibited widely across North America.