Item no. 8h_order
Meeting Date: August 11, 2026
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Order No. 2026-07

AN ORDER OF THE PORT OF SEATTLE COMMISSION
... appointing a Public Member to the Port of Seattle
Portwide Arts and Culture Board.
PROPOSED
AUGUST 11, 2026
INTRODUCTION
The Portwide Arts and Culture Board recommended to the Commission, during its August 11,
2026 meeting, the appointment of Emily Tanner-McLean to the Portwide Arts and Culture Board,
as a public member for a term of three (3) years. Ms. Tanner-McLean is filling a vacancy created
by the departure of a previous public member.
TEXT OF THE ORDER
The Port Commission, in accordance with the Portwide Arts and Cultural Program Policy
Directive, hereby appoints Emily Tanner-McLean to serve a three-year term as a Public Member
on the Portwide Arts and Culture Board, ending August 1, 2028.
STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE ORDER
On November 19, 2019, the Commission adopted Resolution No. 3766 establishing the Portwide
Arts and Culture Board to provide guidance, leadership, and support to the Commission in its
policy to procure, commission, and incorporate high-quality art that engages the public. The
Board is comprised of nine (9) members: two (2) Port Commissioners, three (3) Executive
Leadership Team, and four (4) public members appointed by the Port Commission.
The professional public members are integral to the work done by the Portwide Arts and Culture
Board and represent expertise and experience in fine arts, museum management, architecture
and/or design.
Ms. Emily Tanner-McLean was born in California and raised in New York, and has called Seattle
home since 2014. She is a multimedia artist working primarily with video. A child of the MTV
generation, Emily came of age at a time when media's grip on culture and politics exponentially
tightened. While earning her Bachelor's degree in Studio Art at New York University (2005), she
witnessed the attacks of 9/11 and became acutely aware the media's role in manipulating the
public's consciousness. This experience seeded an interest in media's generative capacity to
promote new, awareness-building ways of thinking.

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Following undergrad, Emily worked in fundraising for cultural organizations and then for park
projects in New York and Seattle, securing funding for public art and community programs. In
2013, she completed a Master's degree in Public Administration with an emphasis on cultural
policy. This career and her studies educated her in the complex ecosystem in which artworks and
programs are developed. It also stimulated her curiosity in the varied and often contradictory
ways people perceive environment and symbols, a subject that informs her current art practice.

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