Elaine Ling was born in Hong Kong, but has lived in Canada since age nine. After completing her medical studies she became a family physician. Her special interest was the First Nation population of Northern Canada and her practice encompassed much of Arctic northern Canada from the northeast coast of Newfoundland to the northwest coast of British Columbia. She developed a deep affinity for the Ojibwa, Cree, Inuit, Kwakiutl and Haida peoples of these isolated regions and began to make her first serious photographic images.

 

Ling has exhibited extensively in the US, Canada, Mexico, South America and Europe including solo and group exhibitions. In Canada her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Canadian Sculpture Centre and the Mistral, Arcturus, Posluns, Idee and McGill Galleries and in Europe at Bratislava Photofest; Prague House of Photography; Kievfoto; Centro Portugues de Fotografia; Mannheim Fototage; Fotobiennale, Moscow and Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi. Her images have also been featured extensively in group exhibitions throughout Europe and at many photography centers in South America.

 

Ling's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Henry Buhl Foundation in NYC; Royal Ontario Museum; Ryerson University; Windsor Art Gallery; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography; Brooklyn Museum; Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi; Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Museet for Fotokunst, Denmark.

 

She has published in ZOOM, Aperture, The Polaroid Book, View Camera, Photo Review, Powerhouse Review, Artweek, fotoMAGAZIN, PHOTO Technik International and in numerous specialist and trade magazines in Europe., Canada and South America. In 2005 Ling was the Photo Lucida Photographer of the Year. Her most recent project; Mongolia: Land Of The Deer Stone, an intimate and personal journal following nomadic families through the ancient landscape of Mongolia, was published in 2009.