Irene Snarby is a doctoral research fellow in art history at UiT The Arctic University of Norway at the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education. She is a member of the research group Worlding Northern Art (WONA) where she is carrying out research into the works of the artist Iver Jåks, and the affiliation of abstract concepts to art and the formation of new understandings.

Snarby has worked as a curator within the Art Department of The Sámi Museum – RiddoDuottarMuseat in Kárášjohka (Sápmi/Norway) and has been a member of the Sámi Parliament’s Acquisitions Committee for Contemporary Art. She has written essays, given lectures and been an editor for several publications of Sámi art for over twenty years. She has also been an advisor on important art projects such as the International Indigenous Art exhibition Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, and There is no, at the Northern Norwegian Art Museum.