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CONTENTS

33.2

Inuit Art Quarterly Water

Front

Features

Back CURATORIAL NOTES

04 Contributors

58 Inuuqatikka: My Dear Relations by Nakasuk Alariaq, Linda Grussani and Tamara de Szegheo Lang

05 From the Editor 06 Impact Update 5 WORKS

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

The Life Aquatic

62 Rigolet by Heather Campbell

A sneak peek at some current and upcoming exhibitions and projects.

64 Qaunaq Mikkigak Kakulu Saggiaktok Thomassie Tukaluk

CHOICE

66 News

HIGHLIGHTS TRIBUTE

20 Martha and William Noah by Nadia Kurd

LAST LOOK

68 Mark Emerak

CHOICE

22 Maureen Gruben by Jaimie Isaac PROFILE

24 Jessica Winters by Emily Henderson

28 Between Sea and Sky by Eldred Allen and Robert Kautuk Two aerial photographers examine each other’s work.

38 Seaworthy: Joe Talirunili’s Sculptural Stories by Norman Zepp

On Inuit art’s most sought after artist and his record-breaking umiaq sculptures. PORTFOLIO

46 Drawn From Water

18 artists inspired by the surface, the shore and the deep. LEGACY

54 Soap, Wax and Vinyl: Tracing the Recent History of Inlay in Inuit Art by Mark London

ON THE COVER

Eldred Allen (b. 1978 Rigolet) — A Seagull’s View, Full Steam Ahead (detail) 2019 Digital photograph COURTESY THE ARTIST

ABOVE

Joe Talirunili (1906–1976 Puvirnituq) — Migration c. 1975 COURTESY CANADIAN MUSEUM OF HISTORY

LEFT

Ningiukulu Teevee (b. 1963 Kinngait) — Untitled (Sedna by the Sea) 2001–2002 REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS

Water

Front

MASTHEAD

CONTRIBUTORS

PUBLISHER

EDITORIAL

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The Inuit Art Quarterly is published by the Inuit Art Foundation.

Executive Director and Publisher Alysa Procida

President Heather Igloliorte Montreal, QC

Editorial Director Britt Gallpen

Secretary-Treasurer Erica Lugt Inuvik, NT

Established in 1987, the Inuit Art Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that provides support to Canada’s Inuit arts communities and is the sole national body mandated to promote Inuit artists and art within Canada and internationally. This magazine relies on donations made to the Inuit Art Foundation, a registered charitable organization in Canada (BN #121033724RR0001) and the United States (#980140282). The Inuit Art Foundation gratefully acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through contributions from the Reconciliation Secretariat at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage, as well as the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Creates.

Managing Editor Michael Stevens Online Editor Jessica MacDonald Profiles Editor Emily Henderson Contributing Editor Napatsi Folger Copy Editor Lisa Frenette Fact Checker Amy Prouty Advertising Manager Nicholas Wattson

The Inuit Art Quarterly is a member of Magazines Canada. Publication date of this issue: June 15, 2020 ISSN 0831-6708 Publication Mail Agreement #40050252

Igloo Tag Coordinator Blandina Attaarjuaq Makkik

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. THE INUIT ART QUARTERLY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR UNSOLICITED MATERIAL. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE INUIT ART QUARTERLY ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE INUIT ART FOUNDATION. PRINTED IN CANADA. DISTRIBUTED BY MAGAZINES CANADA. FROM TIME TO TIME WE MAKE OUR SUBSCRIBERS’ NAMES AVAILABLE TO COMPANIES WHOSE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES WE FEEL MAY BE OF INTEREST TO YOU. TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THESE MAILINGS, PLEASE SEND YOUR REQUEST, ALONG WITH A COPY OF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION MAILING LABEL, TO THE ADDRESS ABOVE.

Inuit Art Quarterly

Jamie Cameron Toronto, ON Patricia Feheley Toronto, ON Michael Massie Kippens, NL Ryan Rice Toronto, ON

Colour Gas Company Printing Interprovincial Group

Inuit Art Foundation 1655 Dupont Street Toronto, ON, M6P 3T1 (647) 498-7717 inuitartfoundation.org

Reneltta Arluk Banff, AB

Art Director Matthew Hoffman

Subscriptions subscribe@inuitartfoundation.org Canada: $33/yr. Excludes GST/HST. US: $44/yr. Elsewhere: $48/yr. GST/HST #121033724RT0001.

Postmaster send address changes to Inuit Art Foundation. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to:

Eric Anoee Jr. Arviat, NU

Archives Coordinator Joanna McMann Archives Assistant Magdalen Lau Archival Research Officer Shamila Karunakaran Archival Research Officer Brenna Middleton

Heather Campbell Heather Campbell is an art consultant, illustrator and artist from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL. She has a BFA from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College School of Fine Art, Memorial University, and has worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Indigenous Art Centre of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) and the National Gallery of Canada. Currently, she is working as an Indigenous researcher at Library and Archives Canada. PAGE 62

Nunatsiavut Community Liaison Holly Andersen

Mark London has been in the Inuit art business since childhood. The son of art dealers, he has helmed Galerie Elca London, one of Canada’s oldest galleries, for over 30 years. He has an honours degree in Art History from McGill University. Mark is also a partner in First Arts Premiers Inc., a new venture specializing in Indigenous art on the secondary market and serves on the Board of Directors for the Art Dealers Association of Canada. PAGE 54

Nunavik Community Liaison Nancy Saunders

Robert Kautuk

PROGRAMS

Administrative Assistant Brittany Holliss

Eldred Allen is a photographer from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL, who maps the world around him using a combination of hand-held 360° photosphere cameras, drones and 3D modelling. In partnership with his wife, he runs Bird’s Eye Inc., which produces photography, photogrammetry, 3D scans and videos, all using drone technology. PAGE 28

Mark London

—

Development Manager Christa Ouimet

Eldred Allen

Inuvialuit Settlement Region Community Liaison Darcie Bernhardt

Nunavut Community Liaison Jesse Tungilik Southern Canada West Community Liaison Alberta Rose Williams

—

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

Robert Kautuk is a photographer based in Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River), NU, whose images afford a unique perspective on life in the North. Kautuk is particularly known for the Arctic aerial scenes he achieves with the aid of a drone. His work has appeared in publications including the Inuit Art Quarterly, Nunatsiaq News and Up Here, and he has contributed to many northern mapping projects. PAGE 28

Norman Zepp

Mary Dailey Desmarais Kim Latreille Samia Madwar Sarah Milroy Taqralik Partridge Dominique Ritter Elizabeth Qulaut

Norman Zepp is a Saskatoon-based curator and art historian and has collected, studied and written about Inuit for over 50 years. He obtained his MA from Carleton University studying under George Swinton. Formerly Curator of Exhibitions at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, SK, and Curator of Inuit Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Zepp has organized many exhibitions including Pure Vision: The Keewatin Spirit (1986). PAGE 38

Summer 2020

FROM THE EDITOR

Mid-way through production on this issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly, our world, like yours, effectively stopped. In quick succession, ripples of concern gave way to rapid change and before we knew it the entirety of our team— Inuit Art Foundation staff and contributors as well as artists— found ourselves in a new reality. As our bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms became offices and studios, galleries and museums closed their doors. Stages, seats and theatres emptied, while bookstores and newsstands across this country and throughout the world moved online. Many have not. Publishing an art magazine is always a challenge: it’s too niche, it’s too expensive. And yet, we know, as I know you do, there is something intrinsically special about holding a world—many worlds—in your hands. The artists featured in the pages of the IAQ transport us, inviting us to view the world in a new way. In this issue two photographers, Eldred Allen and Robert Kautuk, hailing from communities approximately 1,879 km apart, have explored familiar surroundings from unfamiliar vantages through the use of drone photography. Recognizing this shared aesthetic affinity, we were excited to ask each to reflect on the other’s work. The resulting Feature explores the world of water, coastal edges, riverways and lakes, from above. From Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL, by way of Ottawa, ON, artist Heather Campbell reflects on the shifting climate realities facing her home community in “Navigating Changing Tides” and the responses from Rigolettimiut artists to this crisis. For Campbell, as it is for Inuit artists across Inuit Nunangat, the effects of rising sea levels and an interdependency with the ocean does not exist in the abstract. Tellingly, water is a recurring motif in works across media, generations and communities. Our Portfolio in this issue looks to the shore, surface and deep as sites of storytelling in Inuit art. Rounding out this issue is a Feature on an artist whose career has been largely defined by his own stories of water. A fisherman and hunter as well as a printmaker and sculptor, Joe Talirunili (1906–1976) chronicled a pivotal childhood memory of a treacherous sea voyage into numerous sculptures of

umiat fashioned from stone, hide, plastic, string and wood. Works from the Migration series, or “Joe Boats” as they’ve come to be known, capture the immediacy and instinct needed for survival at sea. Likewise, Talirunili’s boats, filled to the brim with figures and all rowing in the same direction, are an apt and timely reminder about the need for togetherness in times of crisis. When we decided to create an issue themed on “Water,” we had no idea that when it would be released, we would be more physically separated from each other than we could imagine. And yet, water, much like art, continues to connect us all. I’d like to thank all of our contributors, for this issue as well as every issue we’ve published, for helping to keep us connected as a community. Lastly, I hope you’ll join me in congratulating them and, most importantly, the artists who make works that inspire us. As this issue was going to press we learned that the IAQ had been shortlisted for Best Magazine, Arts and Literary at the 2020 National Magazine Awards. In a time of uncertainty, it’s comforting to know the arts continue to be valued and celebrated. I hope you enjoy this issue of the IAQ and that wherever it finds you, it meets you in a safe harbour. Britt Gallpen Editorial Director

ABOVE

Heather Campbell (b. 1973 Rigolet) — Marine Dream 2019 Pen and ink 30.5 × 23 cm COURTESY THE ARTIST

Water

Front

THANK YOU

Our donors make all the difference. IAF Sustainers Circle With annual gifts of $1,000 or more, this incredibly dedicated group provides critical support to connect artists with opportunities and make an extraordinary impact. $100,000 RBC Foundation $25,000–$49,999 Power Corporation of Canada $10,000–$25,000 First Arts Willmott Bruce Hunter Foundation K. Richardson The Herb and Cece Schreiber Foundation

IAF Supporter’s Circle The Supporter’s Circle is a special group of donors who give monthly to sustain the IAF and create opportunities for artists.

Inuit Art Quarterly

Monthly supporter Endowment supporter Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award supporter Inuit Art Quarterly supporter IAQ Profiles supporter

$2,500–$4,999 Katarina Kupca Joram Piatigorsky The Radlett Foundation Frances Scheidel, in memory of Thomas M. Scheidel

$1,000–$2,499 Paul and Ellen Alkon Blair Assaly Shary Boyle Ross A. Caton Donald and Pat Dodds Marian Dodds, in honour of Dedie Dodds Arthur Drache CM, QC and Judy Young Drache Eleanor Erikson Fath Group/O’Hanlon Paving Patricia Feheley David Forrest Janice Gonsalves Huit Huit Tours Ltd. and Cape Dorset Inuit Art Inuit Art Society K+D (Kalaman + Demetriou) Monty Kehl and Craig Wilbanks Charles Kingsley The Michael And Sonja Koerner Charitable Foundation Hesty Leibtag

Ann and Michael Lesk David and Liz Macdonald Christie MacInnes Heather McNab Allan Newell Susan A. Ollila Danielle Ouimet, in honour of Christa Ouimet Constance Pathy PCL Contractors Canada Inc. Ann Posen, in memory of my father, David Braidberg Andrew and Valerie Pringle Alysa Procida and Kevin Stewart Shirley Richardson Céline Saucier David Sproule, in honour of Jean Katherine Sproule Harriet Stairs Torex Consulting Gail Vanstone Westchester Community Foundation, Bell-Jacoby Fund Norman Zepp and Judith Varga

Manasie Paniloo Akpaliapik Mary Anglim Andrea Arnold Stephen Baker Barbara and Vincent Barresi Christopher Bredt and Jamie Cameron Tobi Bruce Catherine Campbell

Claudia Christian L.E. Cleman in memory of Fred Cleman Celia Denov Donald and Pat Dodds Kate Doorly Sophie Dorais Melanie Egan Lynn Feasey

Britt Gallpen and Travis Vakenti Anik Glaude Dr. Andrew Gotowiec Barbara Hale Shawn Hassell Dianne Hayman Brittany Holliss Amy Jenkins

TD Bank Group / The Ready Commitment $5,000–$9,999 Rene Balcer Christopher Bredt and Jamie Cameron, in honour of Dorothy Cameron Susan Carter Andrew Chodos, in memory of Ted and Toni Chodos Flywheel Strategic Goring Family Foundation Hugh Hall Marion Scott Gallery Patrick Odier John and Joyce Price and one anonymous donor

Summer 2020

THANK YOU

Our donors celebrate and nurture artists, bringing untold stories to light. Because of our donors, global awareness and appreciation of Inuit art and artists continues to grow. They provide opportunities for artists to explore their practices, learn new skills and grow. The donors listed in these pages made all of this and more possible by giving between March 15, 2019 and March 15, 2020. This support is especially critical now in these uncertain times. Thank you!

Friends of the Foundation $500–$999 James R. Abel, in honour of Xanthipi L. Abel Carole Ahmad and family James Bader Barbara and Vincent Barresi The Honourable Patricia Bovey Kaaren and Julian Brown Tobi Bruce Jamie Cameron, in honour of Jeanette Power Lili Chester Jeffrey Cobb, in memory of Justin Lyman Cobb III Yvonne C. Condell Neil Devitt Peter and Irena Dixon, in memory of Philip Igloliorte Jon and Val Eliassen Lyyli Elliott

Harald Finkler and Nadine Nickner Erik Haites Molly K. Heines and Thomas J. Moloney Margaret and Roger Horton Carola Kaegi Dr. Simon E. Lappi Ellen Lehman Michael Martens, in memory of Miriam Bordofsky Meridian Credit Union Kathryn Minard Nancy Moore Clifford Papke Paul Pizzolante Ryan Rice Deborah and Sandy Riley Wendy Rittenhouse Michael and Melanie Southern Ellen Taubman Jaan Whitehead Kim Wiebe and Aubrey Margolis and one anonymous donor

$250–$499 Nakasuk Alariaq John and Sylvia Aldrich Eleanor Allgood Alphabet Shelley Ambrose Stephen Baker Sandra Barz Susan Baum Marc Bendick Jr., in honour of Adventure Canada Terry and Donna Bladholm Stephen Bulger Aaron Cain Catherine Campbell CarData Geoffrey and Martha Clark Jane Coppenrath Rob Craigie Kate Doorly Sophie Dorais Hélène Dussault and Louis Hanrahan Sandra Dyck

Leah Erickson, in honour of all Inuit artists Robert and Karlen Fellows Yvonne and David Fleck Alain Fournier Galerie d’art Vincent Britt Gallpen and Travis Vakenti Susan Gallpen Peter Gardner The Gas Company Dr. Andrew Gotowiec Gillian Graham Linda Grussani Barbara Hale Sally Hart Shawn Hassell Dianne Hayman Carol Heppenstall Chuck Hudson Heather Igloliorte and Mathew Brulotte Susan A. Kaplan Joyce Keltie Rawlson King

Katarina Kupca Samia Madwar, in honour of Hazar Shawaf Michael Martens, in memory of Miriam Bordofsky Roxanne McCaig Stephen Morris, in memory of Aqjangayuk Shaa

Clifford Papke Kara Pearce Ann Posen, in honour of David Braidberg Alysa Procida and Kevin Stewart Robin and David Procida Eva Riis-Culver

Joanne Schmidt, in loving memory of Gail Schmidt Michael and Melanie Southern Joyce and Fred Sparling David Sproule, in memory of Jean Katherine Sproule Jacek Szulc

Gail Vanstone Nicholas Wattson Gord and Laurie Webster Claude M. Weil, in honour of Jim Shirley Peggy Weller Kim Wiebe and Aubrey Margolis and two anonymous donors

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW TO SUPPORT ARTISTS, PLEASE CONTACT US AT 647-498-7717 OR VISIT US ONLINE AT INUITARTFOUNDATION.ORG. AS A REGISTERED CHARITY IN CANADA (#121033724RR001) AND THE UNITED STATES (#980140282), THE IAF WELCOMES DONATIONS, SPONSORSHIPS, LEGACY GIFTS AND IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS.

Water

Front

THANK YOU

Animator and filmmaker Glenn Gear is no stranger to generative artistic exchanges. This past winter, Gear undertook a residency at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center that left a lasting impression. Here’s how our supporters have made the difference:

PHOTO LISA GRAVES

Mary Kostman Val K. Lem Genevieve LeMoine Linda Lewis Louise Logan Dr. Marie A. Loyer Maija M. Lutz and Peter A. Tassia Blandina Attaarjuaq Makkik and Greg Rogers, in memory of Amelia and Paul Angilirq P. McKeown Michael J. Noone Suzanne O’Hara Alex and Ann Maners Pappas Martin Pâquet The Pemsel Case Foundation, in honour of Jamie Cameron Robin and David Procida Margaret Rieger Bruce Roberts Kerstin Roger Lou Ruffolo Michael Ryan, in honour of Patricia Ryan

Inuit Art Quarterly

$100–$249 Amy Adams Manasie Paniloo Akpaliapik Mary Anglim Sarah Ashton, in honour of Sharon Allen Anne-Claude Bacon Catherine Badke Don and Anne Badke Elizabeth Ball, in memory of Thomas G. Fowler Eric Barnum John Beck Heather Beecroft, in honour of George Swinton Patrick Beland Brian Belchamber Diane Biehl Jurg and Christel Bieri Pamella and Charles Binder, in honour of C. Alan Hudson III Marjorie Blankstein CM, OM, LLD

Leslie Saxon West Joanne Schmidt, in loving memory of Gail Schmidt Mari Shantz Mark Shiner Bernardo and Jansje Stramwasser Carol and Charles Tator Marie-Josée Therrien Hunter and Valerie Thompson Jay and Deborah Thomson Carol Thrun MD Ann Tompkins Jim and Merri Van Dyke James and Louise Vesper Nicholas Wattson Gord and Laurie Webster Peggy Weller Catherine Wilkes, in honour of David Wilkes Mark and Margie Zivin and one anonymous donor

Claus and Anne Borchardt Francois Boucher, in memory of Peter Pitseolak Karen Bradfield Woody Brown and Christa Ouimet, in memory of Susan Oster Freda and Irwin Browns Lisa-Margaret S. Bryan David Burns Gabrielle Campbell Mary F. Campbell, in honour of Billy Gauthier Denise Cargill Shelley Chochinov Claudia Christian L.E. Cleman, in memory of Fred Cleman Nancy Cleman Carol Cole Bernard Cummings Raymond F. Currie

Summer 2020

THANK YOU

This residency allowed me a unique opportunity to foster new connections with other Indigenous art professionals and attend talks and open studio days where we collaborated with each other. Our conversations helped forge friendships across borders and has led to potential workshops I could facilitate in Indigenous digital storytelling for those living in remote communities in Alaska. Nakummek! Thank you donors for your generosity and support!” GLENN GEAR

Fred and Mary Cutler Brian Davies Celia Denov Urmi Desai Nadine Di Monte Nathalie Ducamp François Dumaine Melanie Egan Leslie Eisenberg Pat English Keith Evans Lynn Feasey Dee Fenner and Charles Moss Robin Field Shirley Finfrock Barbara Fischer Michael L. Foreman and Leslie Roden-Foreman Ellen Fraser Ed Friedman Paul Gemmiti John Geoghegan Anik Glaude Carole Gobeil

Claire S. Gold Peter Gold and Athalie Joy Deborah Gordon Nelson Graburn, in memory of Taiara and Ituvik from Salluit Carol Gray Mark Gustafson Erik Haites, in honour of John Geoghegan Andrea Hamilton John A. Hanjian Kathryn Hanna Tekla Harms Clive Harvey Ian Harvey Janet Heagle Anne Hearn Charles Hilton Patricia Hinton and David Wilson Albert and Femmeke Holthuis Richard Horder

Dale Horwitz Diane and Daryl Howard Charitable Foundation Warren Howard Andrew Hubbertz indiGem Inc., in honour of Mathew Nuqingaq Phil Ivanoff Susan Ivory, in memory of Melvin A. Ivory Lynn Jackson, in honour of Paula Jackson Drs. Laurence and Katherine Jacobs Lynne and Ed Jaffe Amy Jenkins Sharon Jorgens Lou Jungheim and Thalia Nicas, in memory of Francine Rosenberg John and Johanna Kassenaar Nicolette Kaszor Nancy Keppelman and Michael Smerza Sharon Kozicki

Nadia Kurd Gordon Leggett Joe and Sandra Lintz Kenneth Lister Daryl Logan Simone Ludlow Daniel Macdonald, in honour of David and Liz Macdonald Catherine Madsen Samia Madwar, in honour of Hazar Shawaf George Marcus Elaine and Neil Margolis Susan Marrier William Mather The Honourable Justice Paul Mayer Irene Mazurkewich Roxanne McCaig Rick McGraw Elizabeth McKeown Phyllis and G. Lester McKinnon

OPPOSITE

Glenn Gear showcases new works-in-progress at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage to Chief Curator Francesca DuBrock, January 23, 2020 ALL PHOTOS THE ARTIST

RIGHT

Photograph of Athabascan moosehide moccasins (c. 1940–1980) from the Anchorage Museum collection

Water

Front

THANK YOU

Artist Mark Igloliorte may be a familiar face to Inuit Art Quarterly readers. The cover artist of the Fall 2016 issue and a Choice artist in our Spring 2020 issue, Mark is a passionate IAQ subscriber who uses the magazine in his teaching at Emily Carr University and speaks often about its impact. Here’s how our supporters have made the difference: COURTESY THE ARTIST

Tess McLean, in memory of Christian Gunnar Saare Valerie Meesschaert, in memory of Rene D’Hollander Mary-Ann Metrick, in honour of Cécile Metrick Robert Michaud Stephen Morris, in memory of Aqjangayuk Shaa Margaret Morse Meredith Mozer Scott Mullin Suzanne F. Nash Gary Nelson Louisa L. O’Reilly Carole and Peter Ouimet Louie Palu, in memory of Fiorina and Giuseppe Palu Maria Parsons Kara Pearce Don Pether

Inuit Art Quarterly

Ed Pien, in memory of Tim Pitsiulak and Jutai Toonoo Richard and Annette Pivnick Steve Potocny and Anne Milochik Blaine Rapp, in honour of Helen Mary Rapp Bayard D. Rea Jim Renner, in memory of Norah Renner Leslie Reid Eva Riis-Culver Marcia Rioux Janet Robinson Robert Rosenbaum Lise Rousson-Morneau Susan Rowley Judith Rycus Joseph Salkowitz DMD Alexa Samuels Jeffrey Seidman Seiko Shirafuji Susan Simpson Joyce and Fred Sparling Charmaine Spencer

Colleen Suche George Szabo Jacek Szulc Phil Tinmouth and Brit Dewey Robert C. and Judith Toll Tundra North Tours Theresie Tungilik Roslyn Tunis Joel and Evelyn Umlas Anne Vagi Teri Vakenti Peg and Peter Van Brunt Rod Wacowich, in memory of Lorraine Neill Mary Jo Watson Lowell Waxman Ann and Marshall Webb John Weber, in memory of Mary MacDonald Claude M. Weil, in honour of Jim Shirley Scott White

Amanda Whitney Judy Wolfe Bea Zizlavsky and 9 anonymous donors [1 , 4 ] Up to $99 Bea Alvarez Susan Anthony Judy Archer Andrea Arnold Bruce Bauer Maegen Black Michael Boland Simon Brascoupé Nicholas Brown Kevin Burns Janet Chamberlain Mark Cheetham Jill Coles Rob and Harmonie Cowley Charles Crockford Jennifer Day Sharon Dembo Autumn Diaz

Summer 2020

THANK YOU

I see the Inuit Art Quarterly as a central piece of the community— you have the artists, gallerists, collectors, curators, writers and the audience the magazine reaches—all these people coming together in one place. The thing I really value is that the IAQ has a 100% Indigenous focus, there’s nothing else like it. Thank you for supporting the IAQ.” MARK IGLOLIORTE

Jean Dickinson Leanne Di Monte Janette Doering Lynne Eramo Andrew Fallas David and Lauren Feiglin Gabrielle Girard-Charest Alan Goldstein Karen and George Gorsline Susan Griswold Erik Haites, in honour of Christa Ouimet Joseph Halmy Alissa Hamilton Beatrice Hanson, in memory of Cesare Ansovini Sara Hassan K. E. Heller-McRoberts Emily Henderson Mark Hirschman Petra Holler Brittany Holliss Anna Holmes Home and Away Gallery

OPPOSITE

Mark Igloliorte (b. 1977 Corner Brook) — Kayak Is Inuktitut For Seal Hunting Boat 2019 Acrylic on unstretched canvas 150 × 220 cm COURTESY THE ARTIST

Water

Janna Hiemstra Jane Horner Jacqueline Hynes James Igloliorte Mark Igloliorte Dr. J. Jackson-Thompson, in honour of Dr. Richard C. Thompson Elwood Jimmy Emily Jolliffe Melinda Jose Serena Kataoka, in honour of Aylan Couchie Arlene Katz Nichols Gwen Kerr, in honour of Germaine Arnaktauyok Jo-Ann Kolmes Peter Kovacik Benoit Labelle Carol Lampert Dr. Virginia Lavin Rebecca Lee, in honour of David Lee Jamie Lewis Marion Lord

Pat and Ross MacCulloch Michelle McGeough Lindsay McIntyre, in memory of Kumaa’naaq Patrick McLean Joanna Miazga Rachel Muir Lou Nelson Susan Newlove Sunita Nigam, in honour of Jane Pankovitch Louisa Pauyungie Sr. Marie Peron Hélène Poulin Marilyn Robinson Irene Rokaw Anita Romaniuk Mark Rostrup, in honour of Paula Rostrup Kevin Rush Allan R. Sampson Wally Sapach Nicholas Sappington

Claude Schryer Iris Schweiger Kathryn Scott Patricia Scott Paul Shackel and Barbara Little Elika Shapiro Arlene Skull Scenery Slater Eleni Smolen Charmaine Spencer Ann Sprayregen B. Thompson Kitty Thorne Emilie Tremblay Anne Van Burek Patrizia In Villani Cocchi Charles M. Voirin Nancy Walkling, in memory of Frank Walkling Sarah Whelchel Catherine E. Whitehead and four anonymous donors [1 , 1 ]

You can make the difference. There are more than 13,000 Inuit artists working in Canada today. Many face unfair barriers to making and showcasing their work, but all of them deserve the same opportunities other artists have for their voices to be heard and their work to be seen. By giving to the IAF, you help artists working across Inuit Nunangat and beyond connect to opportunities, have platforms for their work to be seen and build their careers. Celebrate the art you love and make a difference by donating today. 11

Front

5 WORKS

The Life Aquatic IAF staff choose works showing the materials and inspiration artists find in their waterways

BELOW

George Omnik (1905–1978 Point Hope) — Basket with Cover 1961 Baleen, ivory and ink 11.2 × 10.8 × 11.2 cm COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

George Omnik

Basket with Cover (1961)

Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik

People and Animals on Kayak (n.d.) If two is company but three’s a crowd, how about three Inuit and six animals sharing space on just one kayak? Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik’s lively and aptly titled People and Animals on Kayak depicts an overloaded vessel that refuses to buckle under the strain of its boatload of passengers while a tense scene unfolds in the background. At first glance, what appears to be a hunting scene reveals instead a defensive situation

as a hunter raises his spear while standing between a wolf and his family. Beyond him, a figure flees towards the water. One cannot help but wonder, then, if everyone is piled onto a single kayak for more practical reasons—to escape the danger on the shore. EMILY HENDERSON

ABOVE

OPPOSITE (TOP)

OPPOSITE (MIDDLE)

OPPOSITE (BOTTOM)

Shuvinai Ashoona (b. 1961 Kinngait) — Composition (Rainbow Baleen) 2018 Coloured pencil and ink 69.9 × 261.6 cm

Nick Sikkuark (1943–2013 Kugaaruk) — Seal Spirit c. 2009 Bone and hair 17.8 × 20.3 × 10.2 cm

Heather Angnatok (b. 1965 Nain) — Fish skin earrings 2019 Fish leather 4 × 8 cm

COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Inuit Art Quarterly

NAPATSI FOLGER

Contributing Editor

Profiles Editor

Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik (b. 1934 Qamani’tuaq) — People and Animals on Kayak n.d. Coloured pencil and graphite 56.3 × 76 cm COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

Born in Point Hope, Alaska, George Omnik (1905–1978) was an early Inupiaq basket maker whose work largely distinguished the Point Hope style of baleen basket—an art form developed in the early twentieth century by Iñupiaq artists of the Point Barrow region and spread to communities throughout Alaska. Omnik was the first man in the community to practice basket making, and his use of flat lids, wide wefts and shouldered cylindrical shapes influenced the basketry of later Point Hope makers, like Luke Koonook and Gregg Tagarook (1943–2013). Baleen is a flexible and waterproof material, lending itself perfectly to the art of basket weaving. Omnik expertly executes a clockwise weave to produce a lidded basket with a deftly carved ivory and ink topper depicting a fight scene between a hunter and a bloody polar bear that contrasts the black sheen of the baleen. A culmination of beauty and functionality, this basket nods to the deep connection Inuit still have today with our natural environment, both aesthetically and practically.

REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY FEHELEY FINE ARTS

Summer 2020

5 WORKS

Composition (Rainbow Baleen) (2018)

Fish skin earrings (2019)

In addition to globes, fruit, clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts in recent years, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU-based graphic artist Shuvinai Ashoona, RCA, has turned her attention to depictions of bones and baleen. Composition (Rainbow Baleen)—inspired by a Skittles commercial—reimagines the lustrous black surface of two baleen plates in an explosion of

Although the material of these unique earrings is likely not immediately recognizable to most, the texture is arresting. Made from fish skin leather, the subtle decorative patterning evokes the way waves can ripple across the surface of water and is undeniably tactile. This once prevalent technique is now being revived by artists across Inuit Nunangat like Heather Angnatok, expanding the ways that artmaking can help to strengthen cultural practices while bringing more beauty into the world. This is all the more important since, as wearable art, these earrings let the wearer showcase this revived knowledge in a deeply personal yet public way, all while looking incredible.

Shuvinai Ashoona, RCA

Heather Angnatok

colour, complete with wispy, erratic hairs. Like many of Ashoona’s pieces, this work rendered in her signature style is joyful, rooted in lived experience but reimagined, ever so slightly. It is both familiar and entirely brand new. BRITT GALLPEN

Editorial Director

ALYSA PROCIDA

Executive Director and Publisher

Nick Sikkuark

Seal Spirit (c. 2009) There is something pleasurably unsettling about sculptural explorations of the uncanny by Nick Sikkuark (1943–2013). His creatures often seem to have crawled—or slithered— from the pages of an eldritch bestiary. Seals are liminal creatures as they inhabit both water and land. In this work, Sikkuark maps this conceit of porous boundaries onto a spiritual topography; the ethereal translucence of the bone connotes a ghostly apparition Water

that is becoming swiftly more corporeal. This spirit appears to cross the threshold into our realm, sprouting tufts of hair, gaining the ability to interact with its surrounding landscape, which is intimated by the sculpture’s base of unworked bone— a common feature of Sikkuark’s figures. MICHAEL STEVENS

Managing Editor 13

Front

HIGHLIGHTS

Exhibition Highlights A behind-the-scenes look at some notable projects

BELOW

OPPOSITE

Manasie Akpaliapik (b. 1955 Ikpiarjuk) — Inuk Thinking About the Universe 2000 Whale bone, antler, muskox horn and stone 62.4 × 40.5 × 34 cm

Pudlo Pudlat (1916–1992 Kinngait) — Untitled 1959–1965 Graphite and wax crayon 50.9 × 65.6 cm

COURTESY MUSÉE NATIONAL DES BEAUX-ARTS DU QUÉBEC © MANASIE AKPALIAPIK

UPCOMING

Manasie Akpaliapik: Inuit Universe Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec QUEBEC CITY, QC

Developed in collaboration with the artist and his wife, Annie Akpaliapik, the exhibition Inuit Art Quarterly

Manasie Akpaliapik: Inuit Universe features 40 sculptures created between 1997 and 2003, mostly in whale bone. Thirty-seven of these works were donated to MNBAQ by a single collector in 2016; two of the remaining three are recent acquisitions and the final is on loan from the same collector. The exhibition’s curator Daniel Drouin, MNBAQ’s Curator of Early Art and in charge of the MNBAQ’s Inuit art collection, told us more: 14

REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS COURTESY MCMICHAEL CANADIAN ART COLLECTION

The works in this collection communicate the artist’s relationship to his chosen material—in this case, whale bone—but also to his culture and the artistic universe he has created, which continues to grow, in an exhibition that the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec aims to tour throughout Canada. Akpaliapik and his wife met with the museum’s teams to add context, help with exhibition design and organize the groupings of the works. The exhibition employs the artist’s vision, not that of the museographers or museum curators. The artist tells his story through his work, and hopes that his message will be heard. His culture and civilization have been harmed through colonization and the forced implementation of Christianity. The process of colonization and Christian assimilation has had extremely negative consequences on the self-esteem of Inuit, particularly Akpaliapik’s generation. In this exhibition, the artist now expresses pride in his roots, the beauty of his universe and desires to leave a legacy for future generations. The exhibit employs four main themes: Arctic animals and contextualized representations of seals, muskoxen, walruses and owls; the stories and legends of Talilayuq, goddess of the sea, the legend of Lumaaq or that of the owl and the siksik, as well as a section on storytellers; shamanism, spirituality and the supernatural world; and, finally, the community and the bonds that unite its members. A video of Akpaliapik talking about his works and their contexts accompanies the exhibit. Designer Marie-France Grondin has recreated an Arctic universe in the exhibit with photographs of the artist’s hometown Ikpiarjuk (Arctic Bay), NU, on the walls and specially designed furniture that calls to mind the morphology of the Arctic landscape. The works are arranged in the space in a circular radius, with a table containing three whale vertebrae—on loan from the Tadoussac Marine Mammal Interpretation Centre—in the center that allows people to touch the material and appreciate its uniqueness and particularities. As a longtime drum dancer, Akpaliapik will perform for audiences during the opening of the exhibition. – Daniel Drouin Summer 2020

HIGHLIGHTS

ONGOING

iningatilagiit.ca McMichael Canadian Art Collection KLEINBURG, ON / KINNGAIT, NU

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection has partnered with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative on a large-scale digitization project of the Cape Dorset Archive. Composed of nearly 100,000 artworks made in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, between 1959 and 1989, the collection has many stories to tell about the history of artmaking in this iconic community. While works have been regularly showcased in exhibitions and publications, most of the archive has been inaccessible to the public until now. With the Iningat Ilagiit website, the McMichael will display the works in an accessible format online for the first time. We spoke with Jennifer Withrow, Head of Exhibitions and Publications, to learn more:

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I think that one of the biggest goals in the creation of this website is to make this a tool for others. The website was built specifically with the people of Kinngait as its target audience and with a special interest in the descendants of the artists whose work is digitally displayed from the archive housed at the McMichael. We want to make sure that accessibility is ensured for the artists’ home community. The digitization of the Cape Dorset Archive itself is a long-term project that has spanned multiple directors and senior staff who have each stewarded it with grant money, applications, everything that was needed to be put in place before we started actually building a website and photographing the artworks. For those who don’t know, the McMichael received this archive in 1989–90 because of the timely work of curators Susan Gustavison and Jean Blodgett, alongside museum founder Robert McMichael and former Kinngait Studio Manager Terry

Ryan. We’re so glad that there was that vision early to take on something this big. Browsing the site emulates the way a curator can go into a vault to look through boxes. Users can flag artworks, they can ‘collect’ them, they can park them for future exhibition ideas, just like curators will do. Users of the site can also create exhibitions. This archive is such a unique opportunity to compare what was going on in the co-op studio between 1959 and 1989 and what made its way south during this time. Digitization began in the 1990s with a copy stand, but now, we have equipment that facilitates digitization at a much greater speed. The equipment was designed for smaller-scale works, which make up about 20 per cent of the archive, but has adapted well for the larger works. To date, we’re not quite halfway, but we’ve got excellent momentum. – Jennifer Withrow

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HIGHLIGHTS

PHOTO SAALI KUATA

AVAILABLE NOW

Echoes by The Jerry Cans AAKULUK MUSIC

A follow up to their 2017 Juno-nominated album Inuusiq/Life, the Iqaluit, NU-based band The Jerry Cans recently released their fourth album, Echoes, this past May. At the time of recording, this six-person ensemble was composed of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Morrison, vocalists and accordionists Nancy Mike and Avery Keenainak, violinist Gina Burgess, bassist Brendan Doherty and drummer Steve Rigby. The album was released by Aakuluk Music, Nunavut’s first record label, which the band established to support Inuit and Indigenous musicians in 2016. We Inuit Art Quarterly

sat down with throatsinger Keenainak to talk more about the upcoming album: This album is a mix of rock and pop, and there’s some electronic and indie pop in there too. It’s hard to choose a favourite song, but one that stands out to me is our collaboration with James Ungalaq, the lead singer of the Nunavut rock band Northern Haze. It was a lot of fun to work on. The band came up with the melody and then he did lyrics. He grew up only speaking Inuktitut; having different dialects, hearing words that I’m not familiar with in the lyrics and just his voice in general made the song special for me. Personally, there were a lot of Inuit musicians around Nunavut who have 16

influenced me. [In my career] I was inspired by traditional songs, children’s songs and songs that I grew up hearing. James has definitely been an influence, as well as Elisapie, Riit and a lot of Inuit in Nunavut around here. We’re really excited to show the music that we’ve made. I want people listening to the album to go in with an open heart and open mind, and just embrace the feeling that the songs bring out wholeheartedly. I’m excited that we’re bringing out an album—new music for everyone to listen to. It came out of our hearts. Some love, happiness and hardship all went into the album and we’re excited that everyone gets to hear it. – Avery Keenainak Summer 2020

COURTESY THE ARTIST

SPONSORED

CHOICE

Martha and William Noah Qiviuq’s Journey

BELOW

Martha Noah (b. 1943 Qamani’tuaq) William Noah (b. 1943 Black River) — Qiviuq’s Journey 1973 Stonecut and stencil 63.7 × 94 cm COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA MUSEUMS ART COLLECTION

by Nadia Kurd

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

CHOICE

The symbolic, x-ray style representation of Qiviuq and his travelling companion is not only profoundly connected to the spiritual dimension of Qiviuq’s journey, but it is also grounded in the applied and traditional knowledge of hunting and life in the Arctic.

Qiviuq—the celebrated wanderer of Inuit oral storytelling traditions—bounds through the water while mounted on a giant fish, undoubtedly in the midst of one of his many journeys across Inuit Nunangat that are punctuated by visits from tuurngait, giants and other creatures. This print is likely an interpretation of an episode where Qiviuq, trying to locate his lost goose wife, is granted passage across a large lake by Iqaliraq the Fishmaker, who provides Qiviuq with a giant fish and riding instructions: “Get on, and sit behind the second to last fin,” says the Fishmaker. “He will take you across.”¹ The legend of Qiviuq recounts stories of both adventure and morality; the episodes of Qiviuq’s journeys function as parables for understanding life on the land and the lessons it can provide. Legends such as Qiviuq’s have long been transmitted orally from one generation to the next. As Elder Rhoda Akpaliapik Karetak of Arviat, NU, writes, “the stories and legends weren’t merely to entertain. They were told by our parents to educate us by expanding our cognitive and formative intellectual skills.”² Qiviuq is an important touchtone for artists across Inuit Nunangat and especially those from the Kivalliq Region; many artists have interpreted scenes from his stories in their own media, such as Jessie Oonark, OC,

RCA (1906–1985), Victoria Mamnguqsualuk (1930–2016) and Janet Nungnik, to name a few. This stonecut and stencil print by Qamani’tuaq-based artists Martha and William Noah, though, is a unique representation of Qiviuq’s journey. The artists combine their talents to compose and print the complex image of Qiviuq and his fishy companion, interpreting the legend in their own distinct styles, distilling the story to its barest form. Made during the early period of print production at the Sanavik Co-operative, the artists also collaborated on the printing of the image.³ The outline image of both Qiviuq and the fish are first made of stonecut, which is then filled with stenciled lines. These red and teal coloured stenciled lines on Qiviuq’s body contrast each other, giving the print a three-dimensional effect. Without a background, the Noahs are able to economically communicate the urgency of Qiviuq’s travel through water using form and the deep, saturated layers of contrasting colour. Integral to the Noahs’ print translation of this story is the vivid way it shows how oral storytelling shapes worldviews. Take for example, how the print—prefacing others in the Noahs’ oeuvre—emphasizes the special use and symbolic importance of bones in Inuit culture.4 Ultimately, the symbolic,

x-ray style representation of Qiviuq and his travelling companion is not only profoundly connected to the spiritual dimension of Qiviuq’s journey, but it is also grounded in the applied and traditional knowledge of hunting and life in the Arctic—a theme that the Noahs return to in more detail in later prints such as The Skeletoned Caribou (1974) and Dream Fish (1980). Qiviuq’s Journey is part of a larger bequest of artwork by the late Milton Halvarson to the University of Alberta Museums in early 2019. An avid collector of Inuit sculptures and prints, Milton Halvarson was a longtime member and president of the Inuit Art Enthusiasts group in Edmonton, AB.5 Visually and conceptually, Qiviuq’s Journey represents an affirmation of Inuit storytelling. The work is also one of the few prints that speak to the legend of Qiviuq in the collection. Indeed, the print takes the viewer on a visual journey. Stories about Qiviuq’s journey, Elder Rhoda Akpaliapik Karetak notes, “are like real life issues we face today, so it is possible to learn a few lessons from these stories.”6 — Nadia Kurd, PhD is the Curator, University of Alberta Art Collection at the University of Alberta Museums.

NOTES 1

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For more on the episodes of Kiviuq, please see: Kira Van Deusen, Kiviuq: An Inuit Hero and His Siberian Cousins, McGill-Queen's Indigenous and Northern Studies (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 302-303. Rhoda Akpaliapik Karetak, “Inuit Legends and Stories Used as Life Lessons” in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: What Inuit Have Always Known to Be True, eds. Joe Karetak, Frank Tester and Shirley Tagalik. (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2017), 199. Jean Blodgett, Grasp Tight the Old Ways: Selections from the Klamer Family Collection of Inuit Art. (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1983), 52. For a broad discussion on the importance of bones in Inuit art see: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/ article/inuit-art. Curator Jean Blodgett points out,

“the skeletal structure of the animal they hunted and butchered was an integral part of the hunting family’s knowledge.” Blodgett also notes that the depiction of skeletal structures also relates to shamanic beliefs; the shaman’s ability to see themselves as a skeleton during their initiation process is essential to becoming an “all-seeing healer and guardian.” Both the late Milton Halvarson and his late wife, Wendy Halvarson first donated to the University of Alberta Museums in 2008. Rhoda Akpaliapik Karetak, “Inuit Legends and Stories Used as Life Lessons” in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: What Inuit Have Always Known to Be True, eds. Joe Karetak, Frank Tester and Shirley Tagalik. (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2017), 198.

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CHOICE

Maureen Gruben Breathing Hole

by Jaimie Isaac

NOTES 1

Inuit Art Quarterly

subsist was curated by Jaimie Isaac with Jocelyn Piirainen, Assistant Curator of Inuit Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, visually responding to the collection of Inuit art, cultural material and social media animation. The exhibition included works by Maureen Gruben, Andrew Qappik, Mark Igloliorte, KC Adams, Omallaq Oshutsiaq, Dana Claxton, Luke Anguhadluq, Akitiq Sanguya, Napachee Kadlak, Bobby Etoktok, Kananginak Pootoogook, Qaunaq Mikkigak, and some unidentified artists. Pam Palmater is a Mi’kmaq lawyer, professor, activist and politician from Mi’kma’ki, New Brunswick, Canada. Pam Palmater, “The blockades no one talks about devastate Indigenous economies.” Maclean’s, March 03, 2020. Maureen Gruben, “Stitching My Landscape,” in LandMarks2017: The Book (Toronto: Magenta Publishing (2017), 42. Kyra Kordoski, “The Generosity of Translucence,” in QULLIQ (Vancouver: ECU Press, 2020), 8.

Summer 2020

CHOICE

OPPOSITE

Maureen Gruben (b. 1963 Tuktuuyaqtuq) — Breathing Hole 2019 Dricore insulation board, stainless steel pins, sealskin and white cotton thread 121.9 × 76.2 cm

As Gruben worked collectively for several months creating this piece, she deeply considered her ancestors’ subsistence lifestyle. With the material of the sealskins and pins, the artist recalls the women in her community who use every single piece of skin from the animal, making sure none is wasted.

COURTESY THE ARTIST

Over the Winter and Spring of 2019–2020, the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) hosted an exhibition entitled subsist that brought together a selection of works that reflect the political, economic and social systems of subsistence in the individual and collective maintenance of tradition for sustenance, survival and development.¹ The exhibition consisted of interdisciplinary artworks, objects and cultural material from the WAG and Government of Nunavut collections, as well as other pieces on loan; over 12 artists and creators from all regions in the North and across the coasts in Canada were included.² subsist considers the controversy of the seal hunt and Indigenous traditional practices of food sovereignty and economies, and draws the often overlooked connections between people and the sources of their subsistence. Humans have used local natural resources available to them to survive in various ways since time immemorial, but our current moment is one of alienation from those sources: the large-scale food and agriculture industry have estranged people from the source of their food, and there is a constantly rising controversy against hunting and fishing rights and traditional food ways in small-scale, controlled environments. As many scholars and community organizers have noted, this cultural and structural estrangement from food sources is a deeply political problem for Indigenous people, which Pamela Palmater³ summarized in a recent Maclean’s article4: “a giant, well-enforced wall of laws and regulations has kept Indigenous peoples from hunting, fishing, fowling and gathering. Our traditional economies have been criminalized to maintain a non-Indigenous monopoly.” subsist, the exhibition, revealed historical and contemporary impacts of colonialism on Indigenous peoples’ connection to land and knowledge

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about the determinants of health for Indigenous peoples in Canada. Within these contexts, Maureen Gruben debuted Breathing Hole (2019), an installation of 18,000 hole-punched sealskin pieces on sewing pins that were hand-fixed onto 40 squares of pale blue Dricore insulation. In keeping with her larger body of work, Breathing Hole blends traditional and local materials with industrial materials to illustrate the confluence of economies and complex reliance on resources. Breathing Hole’s mix of the cultural and industrial materials reflects Gruben’s aesthetic qualities: “the act of making something beautiful becomes about valuing what you have—the gifts and harvests from the land, and the safety and security of family and loved ones. Principles of hard work balanced by play and relationships with the environment are expressed within many traditional art forms, like work with animal skins, as well as with contemporary materials.”5 Gruben achieved Breathing Hole by bringing community together to complete the work over several months. This inclusive, slow, measured artistic practice draws a correlation between the patience required during a seal hunt with the patience of collective endeavours to complete this work. Breathing Hole also visually echoes the colours and shapes of northern landscapes and ice floes; the white circular spot of sealskin in the top left Dricore square gestures to a hole in the ice—a hole for hunting seal. As Gruben worked collectively for several months creating this piece, she deeply considered the patience and perseverance of her ancestors’ subsistence lifestyle. With the material of the sealskins and pins, the artist recalls the practice of the women in her community who use every single piece of skin from the animal as material in making clothes, dolls or many other cultural

material objects. Zero waste practices— now novel to the middle class and the environmentally conscious—have been common with Indigenous communities for many centuries, and hunting a seal fed, clothed and provided for the community in a manner that was self-determined in the maintenance of cultural traditions. Accordingly, the sealskin pieces used to make Breathing Hole were painstakingly punched from scraps left over from other bodies of work by Gruben and projects made in the community sewing workshops of Gruben’s hometown of Tuktuuyaqtuq, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT. Each punched piece of skin ensured no part of the seals was wasted. Kyra Kordoski has written the about Gruben’s reusing materials in her practice as “values of resourcefulness and careful avoidance of waste that are integral to survival in the Arctic in contrast to a pervasive, passive acceptance of disposability.”6 In a studio visit with Gruben, I very much enjoyed a meal of caribou stew and tea while listening to her speak of her artistic practice and process. I later sat on her living room floor and marvelled over the work she showed me, noticing the interconnected trajectory of one building upon another in thought, criticality, context and material form. I was struck by her kindness and generosity in the way she shared with me and the conversations we had about contributing as curator and creators to cultural continuums as actions of taking care. Gruben’s bodies of work have considered subsistence in many forms; through the lens of an Inuk woman we see resistance, survival, self-determination, ultimate care for the land, family and community are at the centre. — Jaimie Isaac is the curator of Indigenous and Contemporary Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

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PROFILE

Jessica Winters

by Emily Henderson

“Spring is every Inuk’s favourite time of year,” according to Jessica Winters. “After a long cold winter, the sun is up. It’s warmer. Everything is blooming back to life and migrating north again. There is good hunting and fishing and the colour comes back to the land, back to your life. With that, everyone gets their pallik—their spring tan.” Winters’ painting Spring Colours (2019) captures the joy of the thaw, depicting a child with his head thrown back in laughter; his pallik interrupted by the paleness behind the twin oval shadows of his sunglasses. Painted in warm reds and browns, the child sits alone in the frame against a clean, simple background that calls to mind the clear skies of springtime along the coast of northern Labrador. Spring Colours was included in the group exhibition Nunatsiavut: Our Beautiful Land last fall at La Guilde in Montreal, QC, which marked Winters’ first major exhibition. Her deep love for the land of Nunatsiavut and its people richly informs her work and growing up in Makkovik, NL, she was surrounded by artists, both within her family and the Inuit Art Quarterly

tightly-knit community who have continued to inspire her practice. As the daughter and granddaughter of talented seamstresses, textile craft was a fundamental part of her upbringing, and the skills she learned from them still influence her current work in sealskin. Her first foray into the art world, though, was through painting. She was encouraged to paint by her aunt, multidisciplinary artist Dinah Andersen, who gave Winters her first set of acrylics. Her bourgeoning interest in art soon grew more serious and the quality of her work began creating opportunities. In 2014, at only 17 years old, she exhibited at her own booth at the Northern Lights Conference in Ottawa, ON. Following this debut, she began receiving commissions and orders for prints based on her paintings, which she made while balancing her nascent career with her academic pursuits at Memorial University in St. John’s, NL. Winters’ most popular works demonstrate a keen observational eye that celebrates her culture and community while elucidating the effects of the region’s colonial history. Among her most evocative paintings is January 6th 24

(2018), which evokes the Nalujuk Night— a longstanding tradition in a cluster of Nunatsiavut communities that was born out of a continuously evolving response to the Christianization of Inuit in the region. On Old Christmas Day, community members dress up as terrifying Nalujuit, or masked, hooded figures carrying sticks or staffs; it is a reference to the early colonial-era concept of a “Nalujuk” as an Inuk that rejected Christianity and Christmas traditions. Today, Nalujuk Night is a treasured, joyful tradition, and the children are rewarded for playing along with fistfuls of candy. The work evokes the cold air of a still night, punctuated by the silver breath of exhilarated participants. Winters, though, considers her future to be in sealskin, rather than painting. She has long created ornaments and small cut-out maps with sealskin; her first major undertaking using the material was in 2017 when she was commissioned by Fishing for Success, a Newfoundland and Labrador heritage organization, to produce a section of their Canada 150 Cod Mosaic that included tiles from eight other young artists from across the Summer 2020

PROFILE

OPPOSITE

Jessica Winters (b. 1996 Makkovik) — January 6th 2018 Acrylic on canvas 30.5 × 61 cm ALL COURTESY THE ARTIST

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Cod Mosaic Piece 2017 Sealskin and wood 45.7 × 91.4 cm BELOW

Spring Colours 2019 Acrylic on canvas 50.8 × 40.8 cm

province. Crafted from cut pieces of sealskin fastened to a wooden board, the scene she fashioned depicts elements of Inuit ingenuity, such as inuksuit, kayaks and snow goggles. Yet the Hebron Moravian Church looms on the hill in the distance, a quiet acknowledgment of the region’s dark history of colonization. Complementing her own artistic practice, Winters is also an emerging curator. In 2019 she curated fellow Nunatsiavummiut Billy Gauthier’s solo exhibition, Billy Gauthier: Saunituinnaulungitotluni | Beyond Bone, at The Rooms Provincial Gallery in St. John’s, NL. The exhibition marked Gauthier’s first major solo exhibition since his 2010 show at Spirit Wrestler in Vancouver, BC. “Billy is from my area and he’s an Inuk so I found it easy to connect, as a curator and as an artist, because we have the same values,” she reflects. “It was easy for me to understand where he’s coming from and why he does what he does.” Above all, Winters’ ties to the land, culture and her community influence her work and perspectives as an artist, scientist and curator. Currently employed as a project scientist for an underwater acoustics company, where she performs marine mammal analysis in Halifax, NS, Winters is not one to forget her ties to the land, despite being temporarily away from home. “I think my scientific, artistic and curatorial work is shaped by being Inuk and how I see things and what I value,” she says. “Growing up, respecting the land and understanding its importance factored into pursuing science and biology, but also forms the core of my artistic practice.” Water

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Between ᐊᑯᓐᓂᖓᓂ

Sea and Sky

ᑕᕆᐅᖅ ᐃᒪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪ ᓯᓚ

— by Eldred Allen and Robert Kautuk — ᑎᑎᕋᖅᑐᖅ ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐊᓕᓐ ᐊᒻᒪ ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ

With strikingly similar images and aesthetic impulses, we wanted to know what Robert Kautuk, from Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River), NU, and Eldred Allen, from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL, thought of each other’s photographs.

PREVIOUS SPREAD

Robert Kautuk (b. 1984 Kangiqtugaapik) — Niuraivik 2015 Digital photograph ALL COURTESY THE ARTIST

ᑭᖑᓂᐊᓂᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

ᐊᔾᔨᒌᑲᓴᒃᖢᑎᒃ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ, ᖃᐅᔨᔪᒪᕗᒍᑦ ᖃᓄᖅ ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ, ᑲᖐᖅᑐᒐᐱᖕᒥᐅᑕᖅ, ᓄᓇᕗᒻᒥᑦ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐋᓕᓐ, ᕆᒍᓕᑦᒥᐅᑕᖅ, ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᒥᑦ, ᖃᓄᖅ ᐃᓱᒪᖕᒪᖔᑕ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᖏᓐᓂᒃ.

ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ (ᐃᓅᓚᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ 1984-ᒥᑦ ᑲᖏᖅᑐᒑᐱᖕᒥᑦ ) — ᓂᐅᕋᐃᕕᒃ 2015 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᔪᒥᑦ ᐱᔭᐅᔪᑦ

OPPOSITE (ABOVE)

Robert Kautuk — River Surge 2018 Digital photograph ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᖁᓛᓂ)

ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ — ᑯᒃ 2018 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ OPPOSITE (BELOW)

Eldred Allen (b. 1978 Rigolet) — Renewal 2019 Digital photograph ALL COURTESY THE ARTIST

ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᐊᑖᓂ)

ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐋᓕᓐ (ᐃᓅᓚᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ 1978-ᒥᑦ ᕆᒍᓕᑦᒥᑦ ) — ᐅᐱᕐᖔᒃᑯᑦ ᓱᕐᓗ ᓄᑖᖑᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ 2019 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᔪᒥᑦ ᐱᔭᐅᔪᑦ

The watershed pattern in the middle of this image looks like a broom that is ‘sweeping’ the ice away and breaking it up. There is a great use of composition and balance with the sand and ice halving the image. Also, the many lines running through the image add to its strength. It makes me think of the youth as during this time of year many young people get out and jump on icepans like this for fun.

ᑕᑯᓪᓗᒍ ᐃᒪᖅ ᑕᕙᓂ ᑕᑯᔪᓐᓇᕆᕗᑎᑦ ᕿᑎᐊᓂ ᓱᕐᓗ ᓴᓂᐅᑦ ‘ᓴᓂᖅᑐᖅ’ ᓯᑯᒥᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓱᕋᒃᑎᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓪᓗᓂ ᓯᑯ. ᑕᑯᔪᓐᓇᕆᕗᑎᑦ ᓯᐅᕋᕐᒥᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓯᑯᒥᑦ ᑕᕙᓂ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᒥᒃ. ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑕᖅᓴᐃᑦ ᑐᐊᑐᑎᐅᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᑕᑯᔪᓐᓇᕐᒥᔭᓯ ᓱᕐᓗ ᓴᙱᓕᕈᑕᐅᔪᓐᓇᕐᒥᔪᖅ. ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᒃᑭᕙᕋ ᒪᒃᑯᒃᑐᓪᓗᑕ ᐅᐱᕐᖓᒍᕌᖓᑦ ᐊᒥᓱᑦ ᒪᒃᑯᒃᑐᑦ ᐊᔪᕋᓱᖑᖕᒪᑕ ᖁᕕᐊᓇᖅᖢᓂᓗ.

— Eldred Allen

— ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐊᓕᓐ

This one reminds me of the river near our cabin where we can be with each other, and just enjoy being outdoors as spring turns into summer. The shape of this rushing river carves an interesting pattern in the snow. The contrasting colours and the shape of it—it reminds me of human veins. It is the source that keeps the earth alive.

ᑕᓐᓇ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᕋ ᑰᖕᓂᒃ ᐃᒡᓗᕋᓚᕐᒪ ᖃᓂᒋᔭᓂᑦᑐᒥᒃ, ᐃᓚᒌᑎᒍᑦ ᐱᖃᑎᒋᖑᓐᓇᕋᑦᑕ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖁᕕᐊᓱᒃᖢᑕ ᓯᓚᒥᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᕐᒥᒃ ᐅᐱᕐᒐᒃᑯᑦ ᐊᐅᔭᖑᖅᐸᓪᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ. ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᑰᖕᒥ ᐃᒪᐃᑦ ᖃᓄᕈᓘᔭᖅ ᐃᓂᖃᐅᓕᖅᑎᑦᑎᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᑕᒪᓂ ᐊᐳᒻᒥᑦ. ᐊᔾᔨᒌᖏᑦᑐᓪᓗᑎᒃᓗ ᑕᖅᓴᖏᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᖓᓂᖏᑦ—ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᒃᐸᕋ ᓱᕐᓗ ᐃᓄᑉ ᑕᖃᖏᑦ. ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇ ᐅᒪᑎᑦᑎᔪᑦ ᓄᓇᒥᑦ.

— Robert Kautuk

— ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

Water

Between Sea and Sky

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

You can tell the ﬁgures captured in this photo are using all of the animal they have harvested; as witnessed by the skeleton at the bottom left in the water, nothing goes to waste. The white icepan against the dark ocean is very striking and creating its own image. For me, the icepan beneath the water to the right looks like the head of a polar bear with its mouth open. Seeing everyone looking up at the drone makes me think of how this new technology is being used to give a new vantage point to a traditional lifestyle.

OPPOSITE (ABOVE)

Robert Kautuk — After Cutting Up Two Walruses, Iglulik 2016 Digital photograph ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᖁᓛᓂ)

ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ — ᐱᓚᒃᑕᐅᕌᓂᒃᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᒪᕐᕉᒃ ᐊᐅᕖᑦ , ᐃᒡᓗᓕᒃᒥᑦ 2016 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

— Eldred Allen

OPPOSITE (BELOW)

Eldred Allen — Skull of Harp Seals 2018 Inkjet print

ᑕᐅᑐᒍᓐᓇᕆᕗᓯ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᓂᕐᔪᑏᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᐊᖑᔭᐅᔪᕕᓂᑦ ᐊᖑᓇᓱᒃᑎᓄᑦ; ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᓂᕐᔪᑏᑦ, ᐃᒋᑕᐅᔾᔮᖏᑦᑐᑦ ᑕᒪᕐᒥᑦᑎᐊᖅ ᐱᔭᐅᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ. ᑕᒪᓐᓇᓗ ᐅᕙᓐᓄᓪᓕ, ᑕᒪᓐᓇ ᓯᑯ ᐃᒪᐅᑉ ᐊᑖᓂᑦᑐᖅ ᑕᓪᓕᖅᐱᐊᓂᑦᑐᖅ ᓱᕐᓗ ᓇᓅᑉ ᓂᐊᖁᖓ ᐊᐃᑦᑕᖓᓪᓗᓂ ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇ ᑕᐅᑐᒃᑕᕋ. ᑕᐅᑐᒃᖢᓂ ᑭᒃᑯᑐᐃᓐᓇᐃᑦ ᑕᐅᑐᒃᑐᑦ ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᑕᐅᓲᒥᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᒥᒃ ᐃᓱᒪᓕᓱᖑᔪᖓ ᖃᓄᖅ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᓄᑕᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑏᑦ ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᑕᐅᓲᑦ ᐊᑐᖅᑕᐅᕙᖕᓂᖏᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕆᔪᓐᓇᖅᖢᑎᒃ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᐃᓕᖅᑯᓯᑐᖃᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᔭᐅᒋᐊᖃᒻᒪᕆᒃᑯᓂᒃ.

ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᐊᑖᓂ)

ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐋᓕᓐ — ᖃᐃᕈᓕᐅᑉ ᓂᐊᖁᕕᓂᖏᑦ ᓴᐅᓂᖏᑦ 2018 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

— ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐊᓕᓐ

This portrait of a gang of seals, sunbathing, is a good shot and must have taken some patience to capture. The spacing between the harp seals is so regular that it looks designed. It must have been a good feeling to photograph this one—when you just know that you are taking a good photo. Aerial photography gives you a different perspective on the environment and your community. You can be as high as the legal limit, and it changes the view to like a bird’s-eye view. When I got my drone, I was excited about seeing new angles like these. — Robert Kautuk

ᑖᓐᓇ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᓇᑦᑏᑦ, ᐅᖅᑯᓯᓇᓱᒃᑐᑦ ᓯᕿᓂᕐᒧᑦ, ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᑦᑎᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᒻᒪᕆᐊᓗᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᕿᐊᓱᖏᑦᑎᐊᖅᑐᒧᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᔪᕕᓂᖅ. ᐅᖓᓯᒌᖕᓂᖏᑦ ᑕᒃᑯᐊ ᓇᑦᑏᑦ ᐊᖅᑭᑦᑎᐊᖅᓯᒪᔪᒻᒪᕆᐊᓗᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓱᕐᓗ ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇ ᐱᑎᑕᐅᔪᑦ. ᖁᕕᐊᒋᔭᐅᒻᒪᕆᒃᑐᒃᓴᐅᓐᓂᖅᐳᖅ ᑕᒃᑯᓂᖓ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᔪᒧᑦ—ᖃᐅᔨᒪᑦᑎᐊᕐᓗᓂ ᐊᔾᔨᑦᑎᐊᕙᐅᓂᖓᓂᒃ. ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇ ᖁᓛᓂᑦᑐᓂᒃ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᓪᓗᓂ ᐊᔾᔨᒋᖏᒻᒪᕆᒃᑕᖓ ᓄᓇᒥᒃ ᐊᒻᒪ ᓄᓇᓕᖕᒥᑦ. ᑕᑉᐸᓂ ᖁᑦᑎᒃᑐᒻᒪᕆᐊᓗᖕᒥᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕆᔪᓐᓇᖅᐳᑎᑦ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᓯᔾᔨᕈᑕᐅᔪᓐᓇᖅᖢᓂ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᖓᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᓱᕐᓗ ᑎᖕᒥᐊᑦ ᐃᔨᖏᑦᑎᑐᑦ ᑕᑯᒃᓴᐅᓪᓗᓂ. ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᑕᐅᓯᒪᓲᒥᒃ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᑖᖅᑎᓪᓗᖓ, ᐊᒃᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᖁᕕᐊᓱᓚᐅᖅᐳᖓ ᑕᑯᓐᓇᕐᒪᑦ ᖃᓄᑐᐃᓐᓇ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕆᔪᓐᓇᕐᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ. — ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ

Water

Between Sea and Sky

This image reminds me of a grayscale Hillshade that I have used in GIS mapping, which depicts the contours of the land. It’s a very interesting image that contains many diagonals and balance that allows the eye to ﬂow through the entire image. The shapes of ice are always very unique, and it reminds me of images I have captured with my drone of the spring ice here in Nunatsiavut. It’s an image that shows danger—being at the ﬂoe edge—but also great knowledge and skill to safely navigate and kill animals by the hunters depicted here.

ᑕᓐᓇ ᐊᔾᔨ ᑕᑯᓪᓗᒍ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᒃᐸᕋ ᓄᓇᖑᐊᓕᐅᖅᑎᓪᓗᑕ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᓄᓇᐃᑦ ᑕᖅᓴᖃᐅᖅᖢᑎᒃ. ᑕᑯᓪᓗᒍ ᐱᐅᔪᐊᓘᕗᖅ ᐊᒥᓱᓂᒃ ᑕᑯᓐᓇᕐᒪᓐ. ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᓯᑯᐃᑦ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᖓᓂᖏᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᐅᖏᒻᒪᑕ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᒃᐸᕋ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᓚᐅᖅᓯᒪᔭᓐᓂᒃ ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᑕᐅᓲᒃᑯᒃ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᒃᑯᑦ ᓯᑯᒥᑦ ᐅᐱᕐᖓᒃᑯᑦ ᑕᒪᓂ ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᒻᒥᑦ. ᑕᑯᔭᐅᔪᓐᓇᖅᐳᖅ ᖁᐊᖅᓴᕐᓇᖅᑐᒥᒃ— ᓯᓇᖓᓂᖢᓂ—ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᒻᒪᕆᒃᑐᖅ ᖁᐊᖅᓴᕐᓇᖅᑐᒥᑎᓪᓗᒋᑦ ᖃᓄᖅ ᐱᔪᓐᓇᕐᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐊᖑᔪᓐᓇᖅᖢᑎᒃ ᓂᕐᔪᑎᓂᒃ ᐊᖑᓇᓱᒃᑎᓄᑦ.

— Eldred Allen

— ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐊᓕᓐ

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

OPPOSITE

Robert Kautuk — Different Ice Layers 2019 Digital photograph ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ

ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ — ᐊᔾᔨᒌᖏᑦᑐᑦ ᓯᑯᐃᑦ ᖁᓕᕇᒃᖢᑎᒃ 2019 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ RIGHT

Eldred Allen — The Breakaway 2019 Digital photograph ᑕᓕᖅᐱᐊᓂ

ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐋᓕᓐ — ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᒃᑎᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ 2019 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

Water

The freeze up begins. This photo speaks of fall to me, when ice begins to form along the coastal waters. This image reminds me of when you are boating at this time of year, which can be calming with the ice crunching as you go through it. And the ocean is so smooth as the forming ice lessens the swells. This photo captures the different layers of ice really well, giving it a nice pattern. I love shooting in the winter myself, but it can be a challenge to ﬂy the drone in the cold as things start freezing, and the battery life gets shorter. You really have to plan your shots ahead of time.

ᖁᐊᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ. ᑕᓐᓇ ᐊᔾᔨ ᓱᕐᓗ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᖅᐳᖅ ᐅᑭᐊᒃᓴᒥᑦ, ᓱᕐᓗ ᐅᕙᓐᓂᒃ ᖃᐅᔨᑎᑦᑎᕗᖅ ᑕᒪᓐᓇ ᓯᑯᕙᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᓯᒡᔭᒃᑯᑦ. ᑕᓐᓇ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᑎᑦᑎᕗᖅ ᐅᕙᓐᓂᒃ ᐅᒥᐊᖅᑐᖅᖢᑕ ᐅᑭᐊᒃᓵᒃᑯᑦ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓴᕐᓂᖅᖢᓂ ᓯᑯ ᑐᓴᖅᓴᐅᓪᓗᓂ ᐅᒥᐊᕐᒧᑦ ᐊᒃᑐᖅᑕᐅᕙᓪᓕᐊᓪᓗᓂ. ᐃᒪᖅ ᓴᐃᓕᑦᑎᐊᕐᓇᖅᖢᓂ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓯᑯᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᑦ ᒪᓪᓕᓗᐊᕈᓐᓂᖅᑎᑦᑎᓱᖑᖕᒪᑕ. ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᑕᑯᒃᓴᐅᑎᑦᑎᐊᖅᐳᖅ ᐊᔾᔨᒌᖏᑦᑐᓂᒃ ᓯᑯᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᒥᒃ, ᑕᑯᓪᓗᒍ ᐱᐅᔪᒻᒪᕆᐊᓗᒃ. ᖁᑭᖅᓴᖅᖢᖓ ᐅᑭᐅᒃᑯᑦ ᖁᕕᐊᒋᒻᒪᕆᒃᑕᕋ, ᑭᓯᐊᓂᑦᑕᐅᖅ ᐊᔪᕐᓇᕈᔪᓱᖑᖕᒥᔪᖅ ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᑕᓲᒃᒥᒃ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᖃᖅᖢᓂ ᓂᒃᓚᓱᒃᑎᓪᓗᒍ, ᓱᖃᐃᒻᒪ ᖁᐊᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᓱᖑᒻᒥᖕᒪᑕ ᑕᒪᒃᑯᐊ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᑦ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐸᑕᓖᖏᑦ ᓄᖅᑲᖅᓴᕋᐃᓕᖅᖢᑎᒃ. ᐸᕐᓇᒃᓯᒪᑦᑎᐊᕆᐊᖃᖅᑐᑎᑦ ᐅᑭᐅᒃᑯᑦ ᖁᑭᕆᐊᕐᓂᐊᓕᕋᖓᕕᑦ.

— Robert Kautuk

— ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ

Between Sea and Sky

I captured a similar image of spring breakup with my drone called Nature’s Jigsaw (2018). From a compositional standpoint this is a visually appealing image with its repeating patterns and a nice balance between the dark water on the left and white ice on the right. It’s an image that makes me think of spring ‘isolation,’ as during spring breakup we cannot travel anywhere, given the conditions, so we are often bound to the community until we can travel by boat.

OPPOSITE (ABOVE)

Robert Kautuk — Sea Ice Break Up 2019 Digital photograph ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᖁᓛᓂ)

ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ — ᓯᑯ ᑕᕆᐅᕐᒥᑦ ᓱᕋᒃᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ 2019 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

— Eldred Allen

OPPOSITE (BELOW)

Eldred Allen — Nature’s Jigsaw 2018 Digital photograph

ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕆᓚᐅᕆᕗᖓ ᐅᐱᕐᖔᒃᑯᑦ ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᒃᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᐅᐱᕐᖔᒃᑯᑦ ᐊᑐᖅᖢᖓ ᖃᖓᑦᑕᖅᑎᖅᑕᐅᓱᒃᑯᑦ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕈᑎᒥᒃ ᐊᑐᖅᖢᖓ ᑕᐃᔭᐅᔪᒥᒃ ᓄᓇ ᓲᕐᓗ ᐋᖅᑭᒃᓱᒐᖅ (2018)-ᒥᒃ. ᑖᓐᓇ ᑕᐅᑐᒃᖢᒍ ᐱᐅᔪᒻᒪᕆᐊᓗᒃ ᑕᑯᓪᓗᒍ ᓴᐅᒥᐊᓂᑦ ᕿᕐᓈᖓᓪᓗᓂ ᐃᒪᖅ ᐊᒻᒪ ᑕᓕᖅᐱᐊᓂ ᖃᑯᖅᑐᖅ ᐊᐳᑦ. ᑕᓐᓇ ᐊᔾᔨ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᒃᐸᕋ ᐅᐱᕐᖔᒃᑯᑦ ‘ᐅᐸᒃᑕᐅᔪᓐᓇᐃᓪᓕᑎᓪᓗᑕ’ ᓱᖃᐃᒻᒪ ᐅᐱᕐᖓᒃᓵᒃᑯᑦ ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᒃᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᐊᐅᓪᓚᕈᓐᓇᐃᓕᓲᖑᒐᑦᑕ ᓇᒧᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᓇᓕᖕᒥᖏᓐᓇᓕᓲᖑᕗᒍᑦ ᑭᓯᐊᓂ ᐅᒥᐊᖅᑐᕈᓐᓇᖅᓯᒑᖓᑦᑕ ᓇᒧᖓᐅᔪᓐᓇᓕᓱᖑᔪᒍᑦ.

ᐃᒡᓗᐊᓂ (ᐊᑖᓂ)

ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐋᓕᓐ — ᓄᓇ ᓲᕐᓗ ᐋᖅᑭᒃᓱᒐᖅ 2018 ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᑕᐅᓯᒪᔪᑦ

— ᐃᐅᑐᕆᑦ ᐊᓕᓐ

I like the way this photo captures the spring breakup. It makes me think of longer, warmer days, even though it’s diﬃcult to travel at that time as the ice is not thick enough to travel by Ski-Doo and too thick to travel by a boat. There is an interesting play with the scale and contrasting colours here, and the ice starts to resemble chunks of salt preserving country food. I love capturing the breakup too, and it’s a relief to see that there are photographers out there that have similar taste as mine. — Robert Kautuk

ᑖᓐᓇ ᐱᐅᒋᑦᑎᐊᖅᑕᕋ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᐅᐱᕐᖓᒃᓴᒥᑦ ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᒃᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ. ᐃᖅᑲᐃᔾᔪᑎᒋᕙᕋ ᐊᑯᓂᐅᓂᖅᓴᖅ ᐅᓗᖃᓕᕋᖓᑦ, ᐅᖅᑯᓯᕙᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ, ᐊᔪᕐᓇᕋᓗᐊᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᓯᑭᑐᒃᑯ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᕆᐊᒃᓴᖅ ᓯᑯ ᓴᓗᐊᕐᓂᖓᓄᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗᑦᑕᐅᖅ ᐊᔪᕐᓇᕆᓪᓗᓂ ᐅᒥᐊᖅᑐᕆᐊᒃᓴᖅ ᓯᑯ ᐃᔾᔪᓗᐊᕐᓂᖓᓄᑦ. ᐱᐅᔪᐊᓗᕗᖅ ᑕᕙᓂ ᐊᔾᔨᒥᑦ ᑕᖅᓴᖃᐅᑦᑎᐊᖅᖢᓂ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓯᑯ ᐊᕕᒃᑐᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᓲᕐᓗ ᓂᕿ ᑕᕆᐅᓕᖅᑐᖅᓯᒪᔪᖅ ᓱᕈᖅᑕᐃᓕᖁᓪᓗᒍ. ᐱᐅᒋᑦᑎᐊᕐᒥᔭᕋ ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᑦᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑕᐃᒪ ᐊᔾᔨᓕᐅᕆᔨᖃᖅᑐᒃᓴᐅᖕᒥᔪᖅ ᓇᓂᑐᐃᓐᓇᖅ ᑕᐃᒪᓐᓇ ᓯᑯ ᓱᕋᒃᐸᓪᓕᐊᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒍ ᐅᕙᑦᑐᑦᑕᐅᖅ ᑕᐃᒪᐃᑦᑐᒥᒃ ᐱᐅᒃᓴᕐᒥᔪᓂᒃ. — ᐅᓛᐳᑦ ᑲᐅᑐᒃ

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

Water

Between Sea and Sky

Joe Talirunili’s Sculptural Stories

— by Norman Zepp

PREVIOUS SPREAD

Joe Talirunili (1906–1976 Puvirnituq) — Boat with Hunters and Dogs c. 1967–68 Stone and ivory 11 × 24.8 × 10.8 cm COURTESY WALKER’S AUCTIONS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL

BELOW

The People Takatak, Kinuajuk and Kanavalik 1960s–1970s Graphite, felt pen and wax crayon 46 × 61.1 cm

In 2019, Migration Boat, a sculpture by celebrated Nunavimmiuk artist Joe Talirunili (1906–1976), sold for $408,000 at auction, breaking the record for a work of art made by an Inuit artist.¹ “Joe Boats,” as the series of sculptures is colloquially called, have long been among the most valued pieces of Inuit art, and the prices they command have been steadily rising. In this Feature, an art historian and curator considers the aesthetic draw these pieces have on percipient collectors of Inuit art.

COURTESY CANADIAN MUSEUM OF HISTORY

OPPOSITE

Migration Boat early–mid 1970s Stone, skin, wood and thread 27.9 × 38.1 × 17.8 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S PHOTO DIETER HESSEL

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

Joe Talirunili was born near Puvirnituq, Nunavik, QC, on the east coast of Hudson Bay at the turn of the 20th century. The communities of Inukjuak and Puvirnituq were visited by James Houston in the late 1940s and by the ’50s many Inuit like Talirunili and his cousin Davidialuk Alasua Amittu (1910–1976) had become avid carvers. By all accounts, Talirunili was warm and open, a unique, colourful character and consummate storyteller, all of which contributed to his fame. Initially, Talirunili’s sculptures largely featured single figure images of people, birds and animals. His earliest boats appeared in the 1960s and the popularity of this subject meant that it would be continuously visited throughout his career right up to his death in 1976.² The steatite Talirunili used, found in many Nunavik locales, is a dense soft stone that lends itself to highly detailed realism. The stone allows for fully carved figures featuring such details as carefully incised fingernails, hair and eyes. The result was an unprecedented degree of naturalism that became known as “POV realism,” named after Puvirnituq (then known as Povungnituk, or “POV”). Highly skilled artists, like Aisa Qupirualu Alasua (1916–2003) and Charlie Sivuarapik (1911–1968), convincingly depicted all aspects of daily life from single figures to more complicated hunting and camp scenes, and stories and legends. Talirunili worked within this tradition, but his efforts generally lacked the technical proficiency shown by many of his peers and this, surprisingly, lay at the heart of his eventual fame. Talirunili’s arm was severely injured owing to a rifle incident in his youth, and no doubt limited his level of craftsmanship and was behind much of the accidental breakage that occurred while he carved. This misfortune also caused him a lifetime of pain, contributing to the Romantic notion of a struggling artist determined to tell his story:

embellished by such implements as a harpoon, rifle, knife or ulu rendered in stone, wood, antler or ivory. His standing human figures, along with his dozens of bird carvings (particularly of owls), are avidly collected and are indeed worthy. That said, the apex of Talirunili’s artistic prowess is his incomparable large boats that possess an authority, a “presence” not found in his smaller efforts, and have come to define much of the artist’s career. To include Talirunili in an issue devoted to the concept of water is most appropriate. Like many communities across Inuit Nunangat, all Nunavimmiut communities are situated on the coastline and the sea continues to feature heavily in the lived experiences of Inuit. Like most Inuit, the livelihood of Nunavimmiut was, and still is, largely based on marine mammals. The hunting of seal, as with the walrus and beluga, meant that life on the ice and travel on the sea, in kayaks and larger umiat, was a given.4 A discussion of the many accounts of legendary sea creatures and spirits, such as the sea goddess Nuliajuk that dominate the traditional belief system is beyond the scope of this writing, but they underline the sea’s pervasiveness in the life and culture of most Inuit. Inuit have always been very seasonally mobile. During his life, Talirunili and his community members would trek great distances on land between hunting and fishing camps. Such travels, however, were surpassed by the distance entire communities travelled between the mainland and various islands of Hudson’s Bay, and even between the northern coast of Quebec and Baffin Island. Talirunili’s recordsetting Migration Boat underscores the difficulties and hazards of ocean travel by a large group of people in a skin boat propelled by sail and oars. Storytelling is a feature that contributes to the broad appeal of Talirunili’s work and none is as compelling as his recounting of an actual near-death experience that provides much of the subject for his large “migration” boats. While on a spring hunting expedition, a large ice floe broke apart beneath Talirunili and some 40 members of his community. With the ice pan breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, survival itself necessitated the hasty assembling of a boat. Talirunili recounts this catastrophic incident in a syllabic text accompanying one of his drawings:

Although many times it hurts me when I am working, I still keep on going. But now that I am getting old it seems that every year it hurts me more and more all by itself, even when I am not using it.³ Talirunili’s works are seldom highly polished; his are simple and straightforward ﬁgures. Facial features are rudimentary and stylized, while hands are often replaced with drilled holes and thus avoid the need to depict ﬁngers. They are, nevertheless, often generously

Water

Seaworthy

Yesterday they lost the means to survive. So they began to make more again. The men’s wives began to sew the sealskins. They sewed and sewed for a very long time without ever stopping, just working away. They did not want people to die in the water near the ice, in the wild where there are large channels of water.5 A most tenuous craft was constructed by employing material salvaged from tents and qamutiit once used for the now abandoned seal hunting expedition. Under these circumstances this would have been a most unsound assemblage and the harrowing journey to safety that followed was anything but a migration. In spite of this, we continue to label Talirunili’s large boats as such. This misnomer is understandable in light of the fact that the boats Talirunili has depicted appear more in keeping with actual seaworthy umiat than a remnant of a disaster. Nevertheless, these works are full of direct references to the survival story, such as the inclusion of the artist as a passenger, a man holding a rifle or a sail featuring a stitched patch. Migration Boat, like more than a dozen others in the series, reveals a craft filled to the brim with people including mothers and children. Several figures seated along the outside hold oars that contrast with the stone and create a pleasing repetitive pattern. Some individuals are reduced to a series of heads nestled beneath the rowers’ arms. All are crowded together in a mass of tightly interlocking forms. The lead figure holds a rifle; a significant feature in the storytelling that noted how the survivors were allowed to finally reach safety only after their lone rifle was fired at the shore, thus enabling a physical and spiritual connection with their salvation. The addition of a kayak on board is an unusual feature, though they were at times carried in the larger umiat. With few exceptions, Talirunili’s larger craft feature sails, sometimes two. In Migration Boat, the crafted wooden mast and hide sail offers vertical, horizontal and diagonal tension. Their similarity in colour and texture to the wooden oars offers a pleasing visual unity. String is used for the stitching and rigging. The rounded oval shape of the hull is itself a selfcontained pleasing shape possessing a kind of rough elegance. A tag labelled JOE is affixed to the bow as testament to at least some artistic ego. The fact that any voyage in the usually overloaded umiaq was a highly precarious undertaking also contributes to a dramatic reading. A sense of impending doom is heightened by the depiction of a diminutive figure amongst the travellers—Talirunili himself as a child— effectively adding a personal connection that very much is part of the appeal. This small figure becomes an almost heroic symbol as he and the others silently endure hardship and danger. Our knowledge of the tragedy along with the inclusion of some of the story’s narrative elements adds a strong emotional charge.

OPPOSITE

The Migration c. 1975 Stone, wood, hide and thread 29.2 × 26.7 × 8.9 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS

TOP

Joe’s Escape c. 1970 Graphite 27.9 × 20.9 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

RIGHT

Joe’s Escape c. 1970 Stone and wood 11.4 × 19.1 × 6.4 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Water

Seaworthy

Through interviews, most artists working during what I refer to as the Classic Period (c. 1950–1990) emphasize that their art was not produced simply for material advantage, as some may assume owing to initial marketing initiatives:

traditions and the continuation of strongly held values. The production of Inuit art, then as now, is an act of cultural affirmation countering an overwhelming acculturative wave that subsumed so much of the past’s rich traditions and way of life. Indeed, from the beginning, a major appeal of Inuit art to collectors is that it addresses a desire for the “exotic”; a Romantic longing for the distant past and faraway places that continues to this day. Because of this, Talirunili’s boats in particular have thus become complex metaphors. For the most part, Tarlirunili, though highly creative, was untutored and not concerned with the meaning of art as it is understood in the South. There is an intuitive almost instinctual awareness of the potential of line and form, the use of mass, pattern and negative and positive space in Talirunili’s work. Its immediacy and directness depicts a refreshing honesty and reflects a confidence that his creations have real meaning; a belief that what is self-evident is undeniable.

“It is not only for money that we carve...What we show in our carving is the life we have lived in the past right up to today. We show the truth.” – Paulosie Kasadluak6 “As long as I am able, I like to be a sculptor, this is what I like best. I would also like my son to live where I live. Maybe he too could become a sculptor and ﬁnd happiness as I found.” – John Tiktak7 The need for Talirunili and many of his contemporaries to tell their own stories, to show things as they were, as they knew, was an identity maintaining mechanism reaﬃrming past ways and

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

OPPOSITE

Migration Boat early-mid 1970s Stone, wood, hide and thread 34.3 × 31.1 × 17.8 cm COURTESY WALKER’S AUCTIONS PHOTO DIETER HESSEL

RIGHT

Migration c. 1965 Stone, bone, gut and sinew 22 × 30.2 × 14.8 cm COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

BELOW

Story About Hunters Lost in Icebergs While Hunting Seals 1975 Stonecut 62.2 × 70.1 cm CCOURTESY WADDINGTON’S

There remains a particular determinant for the strong market demand and high prices paid for these—connoisseurship, an elite concept that rests on the quest for quality, the finest of art. The artist’s inspired and convincing formal resolution of a timeless and universal image satisfies this requirement. This is a privileged pursuit to be sure, but one that fuels the record sales. Many connoisseurs would agree that any “serious” collection of Inuit sculpture must include a “Joe Boat” as do, for example, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the stellar Sarick and Klamer collections now at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Owing to the popularity of these boats, they are often on display at these institutions, underpinning their appeal and importance. Someone paid $408,000 for Migration Boat because there are so few available and a knowledgeable collector wanted to own one of the best—a fitting testament to an artist whose work should be considered some of the finest sculpture, on par with that created from anywhere and from anytime. In the end, the artist’s personality, time and place, materials and technique, narrative sophistication and the unique nature of the artwork accounts for the broad and lasting appreciation of Talirunili’s boats. NOTES 1

3 4

Water

This sculpture did not attain its lofty price out of the blue. As early as 2004 a large Joe Boat sold at auction for $140,000. In 2012 a large Joe Boat sold for $290,000 and another sold for $259,600 in 2016. In addition, two large boats were recently sold through a private gallery in the range of $200,000, one of which was acquired by a large corporate collection. These sales records reflect the fact that, of the approximately two dozen larger boats made, most now reside in public and corporate collections and thus are very unlikely to return to the commercial market. Joe Talirunili, Joe Talirunili: a grace beyond the reach of art, ed. Marybelle Mitchell (Montreal: Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec, 1977), 4. Ibid, 20. An umiaq is a large skin boat (ideally made from the tough hide of the walrus) made for the purpose of hauling a large number of people. These were propelled by paddles or, in some cases, a sail. Although several combined families would employ these crafts to move up the coast or even to islands to reach summer hunting and fishing camps, these ventures were not usually “migrations” as such. The presence of a large number of women on board (often paddling) has resulted in these craft being called a “women’s” boat. Ingo Hessel, “I Am an Inuit Artist,” in Inuit Modern, ed. Gerald McMaster (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2011), 113. Paulosie Kasadluak, “Nothing Marvellous,” in Port Harrison/Inoucdjouac (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1976), 21. Artist quote from George Swinton, “Touch and the real: contemporary Inuit aesthetics – theory, usage and relevance,” in Art in Society (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1978), 76.

Seaworthy

Drawn

From

Inspiration from the Surface, the Deep and the Shore â&#x20AC;&#x201D; text by Emily Henderson and Napatsi Folger

Water

Inuit relationships to water—to oceans, inland lakes and rivers—has been one of storytelling and survival for generations. In this Portfolio, the IAQ investigates these links with the shore, the surface and the deep and what those spaces mean for everything from the spiritual lives of Inuit to food harvesting practices.

PREVIOUS SPREAD

Arnaquq Ashevak (1956–2009 Kinngait) — Springtime Fishing (detail) 1994 Lithograph and stencil 57.2 × 76.2 cm © DORSET FINE ARTS

The Shore — With nearly every community across Inuit Nunangat clustering alongside the jagged coastlines where land meets sea, the shore means access to the waters on which people depend and its bounty of resources beneath. Community harbours represent vital aspects of the local economy, a haven for sealifts carrying goods from the South, or as a place to leave ﬁshing boats bobbing in the waves that roll in from the open sea. In traditional food harvesting, preparation and butchering often begin immediately at the shore, with animals skinned and portioned on the rocks of the beach, or harvested in the shallows using ﬁshing weirs. Although the shore and the deltas of rivers that feed into the sea represent the nascent point of Inuit relationships to the water they rely on, it can also represent danger, and Inuit oral history is rife with stories of creatures from the deep that snatch children who stray too far from their parents along the shorelines.

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

OPPOSITE (ABOVE)

Tony Anguhalluq (b. 1970 Qamani’tuaq) — Two inuit are out camping for the summer in July and are out fishing by the east side of Baker Lake 2017 Coloured pencil and oil stick 56.5 × 76.2 cm COURTESY MARION SCOTT GALLERY

OPPOSITE (BELOW)

Simeonie Weetaluktuk (b. 1921 Inukjuak) — Walrus and Bear c. 1960 Stone 14.6 × 12.7 × 5.1 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

ABOVE (LEFT)

Janet Kigusiuq (1926–2005 Qamani’tuaq) — Back River Landscape 2003 Coloured pencil 56.5 × 76.2 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

CENTRE (LEFT)

Simona Scottie (b. 1943 Qamani’tuaq) — Summer Camp 1982 Coloured pencil 22.9 × 30.5 cm COURTESY ART GALLERY OF GUELPH

BELOW (LEFT)

Sheojuk Etidlooie (1929–1999 Kinngait) — Fish Weir n.d. Coloured pencil and graphite 22.9 × 65.5 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Water

Drawn From Water

The Surface — A constantly evolving landscape all its own, the surface stretches out towards an imperceptible point on the horizon. For millennia, Inuit have been attuned to the rhythms of the surface of the water and the seasonal cycles of freezing and breaking. As the earth and our climate shift, the increasing unpredictability of sea ice cover is making that relationship more complex and less known. Despite its dangers, the surface remains an endless source of inspiration for artists, depicting sea mammals breaching the water, reﬂecting sunrise to sunset, or portraying the vessels of Inuit ingenuity, such as the kayak or qamutiik, moving across it in both its frozen and liquid states. The tension of the surface is one often broken by hunters and ﬁshermen, harvesting vital sources of food from the deep.

ABOVE

ABOVE (RIGHT)

RIGHT

Mary Okheena (b. 1955 Ulukhaktok) — Friends Forever 1994 Woodcut 99.1 × 134.6 cm

Shirley Moorhouse (b. 1955 Happy ValleyGoose Bay) — Pure Energy 2000 Wool stroud, cotton thread, beads, smoked tanned caribou hide and sealskin 176.7 × 149.5 cm

Itee Pootoogook (1951–2014 Kinngait) — Rear of Canoe 2011 Coloured pencil 50.2 × 66 cm

COURTESY CANADIAN ARCTIC PRODUCERS

COURTESY MARION SCOTT GALLERY

COURTESY CROWN-INDIGENOUS RELATIONS AND NORTHERN AFFAIRS CANADA

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

ABOVE

Kakulu Saggiaktok (1940–2020 Kinngait) — Walrus Perch 2003 Lithograph 51.4 × 71.1 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

CENTRE (RIGHT)

Thomassie Kudluk (1910–1989 Kangirsuk) — Fishing Scene n.d. Stone, string and wood 14 × 16.5 × 2.5 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

BELOW

Niviaksiak (1908–1959 Kinngait) — Polar Bear and Cub in Ice 1959 Sealskin stencil 34.3 × 61 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Water

Drawn From Water

The Deep — Far beneath the reach of hunters in their vessels, the deep has long shaped the stories and oral traditions of Inuit, accessible perhaps only by shamans tasked with descending into the realm of Sedna to comb her long hair on the occasions that it becomes tangled. The home of beings with whom Inuit have shared long standing relationships— such as seals, whales and ﬁsh—the dark, icy depths of the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans represent a vital source of nourishment and resources in the form of meat, mattak, skins for clothing and oil to provide light and warmth through the night. Continually reimagined through traditional and contemporary storytelling, the world beneath the surface is brought to life in art across all media employed by Inuit artists, from pencil drawings of dancing schools of ﬁsh to carved whale pods that seem to hang in suspended animation.

ABOVE

Agnes Nanogak Goose (1925–2001 Ulukhaktok) — Blind Boy 1975 Stonecut 40.6 × 55.9 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

ABOVE (RIGHT)

Quvianaqtuk Pudlat (b. 1962 Kinngait) — Untitled 2019 Coloured pencil and ink 58.4 × 75.9 cm REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS

RIGHT

Davidialuk Alasua Amittu (1910–1976 Puvirnituq) — Sedna Caught in a Net n.d. Stone 11 × 26.5 × 4 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

ABOVE (TOP)

Jobie Crow (b. 1944 Kuujjuaraapik) — Mussels and Sea Urchin on a Rock n.d. c. 1975 Stone 13 × 16 × 25 cm COURTESY ART GALLERY OF GUELPH

ABOVE (CENTRE)

Joel Maniapik (b. 1960 Panniqtuuq) — The Plentiful Sea 2002 Stencil 50 × 62 cm COURTESY DAVIC GALLERY OF NATIVE CANADIAN ARTS

LEFT

John Kavik (1897–1993 Kangiqliniq) — Untitled (Many Fish) 1980 Coloured pencil 30.5 × 45.7 cm COURTESY EXPANDINGINUIT.COM

Water

Drawn From Water

LEGACY

Soap, Wax and Vinyl: Tracing the Recent History of Inlay in Inuit Art

BELOW

Eva Talooki Aliktiluk (1927–1995 Arviat) — Two Inuit Women in Decorated Dress n.d. Stone, beads and felt Dimensions variable COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

by Mark London

Many years ago, I was called in to purchase the art collection of an early pioneer of Arctic aviation, a bush pilot who made frequent trips to some early settlements in the 1940s through the 1960s. Amongst the many wonderful pieces he acquired in his travels was a delightful polar bear bust with painstakingly carved inset teeth. It was hard to tell, and I wondered whether these brilliantly white teeth were fashioned from walrus ivory or caribou antler. I carefully packed up the collection to transport to the gallery, and when everything was unpacked the teeth were nowhere to be found. A frenzied search through a mountain of crumpled packing paper revealed an unexpected surprise: both the upper and lower rows of teeth had been fashioned not from ivory or antler as one would expect. Instead I found two strips of plastic teeth strung along the floor. Picking them up, it occurred to me that they were likely repurposed from an everyday food container. Though these plastic teeth might seem like an irreverent choice of material, they are actually a testament to the ingenuity of the artist. By choosing a pliable material, rather than hard bone or antler, the artist could easily Inuit Art Quarterly

cut while laying the material flat and then simply bend and insert these denture strips into grooves cut in the top and bottom of the jaw. I have long admired works produced during the early years of the commercial period of Inuit art history, generally considered to begin in 1949 with the first exhibition of Inuit art in Southern Canada at the Canadian Guild of Crafts (today’s La Guilde) in Montreal, QC— a watershed moment in the history of Inuit art. Thanks to the efforts of James Houston, the Guild and the Hudson’s Bay Company, who collaborated in staging the exhibition, art buyers in Southern Canada became exposed to the artistic expressions of the Indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic. With this new interest came an exploding demand for Inuit art in the Southern market, which resulted in a burgeoning industry in the Arctic where many Inuit tried their hand at creating objects for sale. The first half of the 1950s saw a period of tremendous experimentation where artists 54

explored the possibilities offered them by a myriad of raw materials. While the Arctic had long provided caribou antler, walrus ivory or driftwood, the arrival of modern tools and a more sedentary lifestyle afforded greater exploration into the possible uses of local supplies of steatite, serpentinite, and other rock, depending on local availability. The archaeological record suggests that for generations, utilitarian or fetish objects were ornamented with a technique akin to scrimshaw involving etching into a smooth surface and darkening the etched lines with soot or lamp black, and perhaps even inlay of contrasting materials such as baleen. This interest in ornamentation is especially evident in artworks produced in the first decade of the early commercial period where many artists explored the possibilities of combining several materials and techniques. Soap, paraffin wax and vinyl records— these are some of the materials Inuit makers reached to in these experimental early days. While many artists from across the Arctic experimented with a variety of textures within the same piece (contrasting areas of polished vs. rough stone), some of the earliest sculptures from Inukjuak, Nunavik, QC, show how artists there explored contrasting colours by incising lines that were later inlayed with either soap or paraffin wax. While the former is more common, the latter afforded greater possibilities in terms of pigmentation, such as melted wax crayons. Akeeaktashuk (1898–1954) is perhaps the most notable example of an artist using soap inlay to augment his scenes of Inuit hunters and their prey. Possibly the most surprising example of innovation in this early period is the use of less common materials such as melted phonograph records and the food container plastic of those polar bear teeth. Artists were able to give a second life to broken objects and discarded materials in an era when such items were not easily replaced. Another example would be Lucie Angalakte Mapsalak, who employed glass, likely repurposed from a discarded doll, to make the hauntingly lifelike eyes of her owl sculptures. Occasionally, carvers employed the plastic handles of broken screwdrivers for a similar purpose. Summer 2020

LEGACY

Early sculptures from both Inukjuak and Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, often feature inset faces carved from caribou antler or walrus ivory. Ivory was often accompanied by the use of scrimshaw to add yet another layer of contrast and detail. While ivory and antler inlaid faces are the most common, sculptors from Ivujivik, Nunavik, QC, would often employ pieces of limestone brought back from walrus hunting trips to Pujjunaq (Mansel Island), NU. While inlay is more common in areas where the local stone is very soft, the use of inlay or embellishment is often seen in Arviat, NU, where the stone is hard and unyielding. A number of Arviat artists including Eva Talooki Aliktiluk (1927–1994), Annie Okalik and Mary Tutsweetok have used plastic or glass beads as inlay for eyes and mouths or as embellishments to literally dress their sculptures in a nod to the richly decorated amautiit that have long been made and worn with great pride. Sadly, the use of inlay greatly decreased by the late 1950s. The reasons for this decline are unclear; artists might have tired of the extra effort required, the co-ops might have been frustrated with inset faces mysteriously disappearing during transport south, or perhaps such pieces simply failed to find interested buyers. By the early 1970s, with the implementation of the CITES Treaty (Convention on International Trade in EndanWater

gered Species) and the American Marine Mammal Protection Act, any products that incorporated marine ivory became difficult—or impossible—to export. Whatever the reasons, by the middle of the 1970s both the use of inlay and the practice of scrimshaw were essentially a thing of the past. One notable regional exception is the Kitikmeot Region, where artists such as Judas Ullulaq (1937– 1999), and Nelson Takkiruq (1930–1999) employed antler, ivory and epoxy as inlay throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and where Uriash Puqiqnak, CM, continues the practice today. Several contemporary artists incorporate inlays as both an homage to the ingenuity of an earlier generation and also as a means of exploring new possibilities. Mattiusi Iyaituk from Ivujivik often inserts faces carved from limestone and exploits the abstract qualities of caribou antler for use as limbs, hair or tails. Michael Massie, OC, RCA, who hails from Nunatsiavut, uses his skills as a jeweller to inset all manner of materials including silver and precious woods. Idris Moss Davies from Qikiqtarjuaq, NU, is an artist whose works simultaneously pay tribute to early Inuit pieces while also evoking an Art Nouveau sensibility. While hardly a full-blown renaissance, I’m hopeful the technique of inlay is making a modest comeback. 55

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Akeeaktashuk (1898–1954 Inukjuak) — Mother and Child c. 1953 Stone, ivory and soap inlay 24.2 × 28 × 21.6 cm COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

Pilipusi Novalinga (1906–1987 Inukjuak) — Ashtray, Match and Cigarette Holder c. 1950 Stone, ivory and soap inlay 7.9 × 11.9 × 13.2 cm COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

Judas Ullulaq (1937–1999 Uqsuqtuuq) — Polar Bear and Friend n.d. Stone and composite 29.2 × 36.8 × 19.1 cm COURTESY WADDINGTON’S

Lucie Angalakte Mapsalak (b. 1931 Naujaat) — Two Owls 1960 Bone, stone, plastic and graphite Dimensions variable COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

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CURATORIAL NOTES

Inuuqatikka: My Dear Relations Agnes Etherington Art Centre JANUARY 11–AUGUST 9, 2020 KINGSTON, ON

by Nakasuk Alariaq, Linda Grussani and Tamara de Szegheo Lang

On January 16, 2020, a qulliq lighting took place in the atrium of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (AEAC) following the remarks that opened the launch of its winter exhibition season, including the exhibition Inuuqatikka: my dear relations.¹ Drawing on her experience as a Kinngarmiuk, Inuk, arnaq and grad student, Nakasuk Alariaq demonstrated the technique she learned from her parents and relayed the socio-political history that contributed to the qulliq’s diminished use during the 1800s and 1900s. For Alariaq, sharing this experience with the AEAC audience meaningfully linked the qulliq’s personal and social significance with the themes of culture and family explored in this exhibition, which she co-curated. The emphasis on the qulliq is not accidental; it is the subject and title of one of Arnait Video Productions’ earliest films and the first film screened in the exhibition. Inuuqatikka presents a living archive of Arnait Video Productions, the world’s leading women-centred Inuit filmmaking collective, and is an exhibition dedicated to Inuit women and relationships in the High Arctic. Finding Inuit Art Quarterly

inspiration in the spaces women gather, the white cube gallery has been re-envisioned as the interior of a white canvas tent, with a qulliq in the centre to keep families warm and an outer perimeter lined with rocks to keep out the cold winds. The locally sourced rocks symbolize stability, security and family, and by bringing them into this space we, the curators, make a direct connection to customary Inuit homes. Arnait has created over twenty works in both narrative and documentary genres, including features, short- and mid-length films, as well as television series. Founded in Iglulik, NU, in 1991 by Iglulingmiut Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Mathilda Hanniliaq, Martha Makkar and Franco-Québeçoise filmmaker Marie-Hélène Cousineau, the collective has made significant contributions to Inuit representations and therefore identities on large and small screens as well as far-reaching online platforms vital to the preservation and continuance of Inuit languages and cultures. Inuuqatikka draws on video material and ephemera from an archival collection that is 58

“on-deposit” at the Queen’s University Archives, entrusted to the Archives in 2016 for safe preservation.² The collection comprises eight boxes of archival materials related to Arnait’s films, including over 300 audiovisual recordings of interviews, consultations and production footage. The Vulnerable Media Lab (VML)— a digitization project hosted by Queen’s that preserves and remediates media made by marginalized peoples and communities— has been working with Arnait members to inventory the collection and digitize select video to increase accessibility to this work. Originally the VML and its associated national research project Archive/CounterArchive, invited members of Arnait Video Productions to a residency at the lab in Kingston, ON, for March 2020—an initiative that was slightly amended due to travel issues stemming from blizzard conditions in Iqaluit and by evolving cancellations due to the 2020 COVID-19 public health crisis.³ The VML wanted to support collective members in revisiting the production footage entrusted to the archive, as this footage is often left behind Summer 2020

CURATORIAL NOTES

OPPOSITE

Installation view of Inuuqatikka: My Dear Relations COURTESY AGNES ETHERINGTON ART CENTRE PHOTO PAUL LITHERLAND

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IsumaTV live broadcast with Madeline Ivalu and Susan Avingaq at Queen’s University, March 13, 2020 COURTESY ISUMA DISTRIBUTION INTERNATIONAL INC.

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after a film project is complete. This footage includes interviews with Elders and community members, both living and passed, so revisiting and making this work available was even more important to members of the collective. When the Agnes Etherington Art Centre offered the Davies Gallery as a venue, the VML saw an opportunity to create a publicfacing exhibition to celebrate the works and ephemera of the collective, alongside its artist residency, and began recruiting the curatorial team that comprised of Tamara de Szegheo, the project manager of the VML; Linda Grussani, Algonquin-Anishinabekwe, PhD candidate in the Queen’s University Cultural Studies; and Nakasuk Alariaq, an emerging curator whom Grussani met at the 2019 Inuit Studies Conference. We, the curatorial team, met in the exhibition space at the end of October 2019 to discuss and research how best to approach an exhibition of a living archive, and shortly arrived at an exhibition outline. The exhibition aesthetics were inspired by the room’s high ceilings and white walls, reminding Alariaq of canvas tents used for camping in the North. The main projection screen features six films of various lengths by the collective, made between 1993 and 2009: Qulliq (1993), Piujuk and Angutautuk (1994), Anaana (2001), Ningiura (2000), Unakuluk (2005), and Before Tomorrow (2008). Two monitors on adjacent walls loop archival footage in time with the projection that relate to the films either thematically or as raw, unedited production footage. This sharing of the filmmaking process is further examined in the wall vitrines that showcase some of the ephemera collected over the

years, including awards, production notes, scripts and advertising materials. Installed across the gallery are a wall hanging hand-sewn by Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Mary Kunuk and Mary Qulitlik, a monitor and a series of enlarged, handwritten family trees. The large textile, on loan from the collective, features prominently in Unakuluk (Dear Little One), Arnait’s 2005 film about Inuit adoption. The monitor features hours of archival footage of the meticulous process of planning, discussing and sewing the representations of family, adoption and community in the textile. The family trees on the adjacent wall provide a different representation of these familial ties. The juxtaposition of finished films with production footage and documentation illustrates the exhibition’s theme of process. Much of Arnait’s oeuvre deals with women’s work in the High Arctic, and Inuuqatikka demonstrates the women of Arnait’s role in creating community and creating films; each film is the product of a long process of consulting with community—work that often goes unnoticed. In keeping with this theme, the exhibition highlights the process of curation, which was collaborative and done in conversation with the Arnait collective.4 The exhibition aimed to set the stage for the work performed during the residency workshops, offering exhibition audiences the opportunity to engage with Arnait’s work before the residency, which featured Madeline Piujuq Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Lucy Tulugarjuk and translator Zipporah Ungalaq. It also meant that the exhibition would continue to be in process and that the content would change in response to the Arnait members’ visit.

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CURATORIAL NOTES

ABOVE

Madeline Piujuq Ivalu Susan Angutautuq Avingaq Mary Kunuk Mary Qulitlik — Unakuluk (Dear Little One) 2006 Duffel, felt, embroidery floss and beads 152 × 237 cm COLLECTION OF ARNAIT VIDEO PRODUCTIONS COURTESY AGNES ETHERINGTON ART CENTRE PHOTO PAUL LITHERLAND

Inuit Art Quarterly

Having the women visit the exhibition space was gratifying for the curators. There was a strong desire to create a space that Inuit women would recognize as different from traditional gallery spaces and feel comfortable visiting. The exhibition texts are presented in Inuktitut (syllabics and roman), French and English, and much of the archival footage is in Inuktitut without English subtitles. The exhibition methodology mirrors the practice of the women in the collective, one that employs intergenerational mentorship and cross-cultural collaboration. The women arrived in Kingston, and workshops, organized by Karine Bertrand and Valerie Noftle, ran from March 10–13 in the Art and Media Lab at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. On the third day of workshops new information about the spread of COVID-19 was released and the women of Arnait, with the organizers, decided that it would be in the best interest of everyone to cancel the events planned for the next day. By morning, they had proposed alternate programming that would be hosted by Tulugarjuk, who interviewed the women with materials from their archive and then toured the exhibition with two of the curators, all broadcast live on IsumaTV, which the AEAC was swift to accommodate. In the centre of the gallery space waits the qulliq lit by co-curator Alariaq. Accompanying the qulliq is the material used for the 60

wick; the oil; a BIC lighter used to start the flame; the wooden stick used for tending the flame; and the tobacco offering in the red pouch that was given to Alariaq by Grussani as part of Anishinaabe traditions to honour and thank Alariaq for the qulliq lighting. Alariaq’s qulliq will remain at the AEAC for the duration of the exhibition.5 NOTES 1

Queen’s University is situated on Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory and was founded in 1841. Queen’s has an ongoing commitment to Indigenizing the institution. The archival collection is considered “on deposit” until a formal deed of gift could be created after careful conversation with Arnait Collective Members. This deed of gift is currently in process after a meeting that was held during the artist residency. The curators were part of a larger organizing team, which included undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and technicians. Consultation throughout this experience was imperative. At one point in the process, Alariaq proposed using qatapikka as the title because it is Inuktitut for “my dear relations” in the Kinngait dialect. When contacting Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Lucy Tulugarjuk to get feedback on the wall text, Tulugarjuk mentioned that the Iglulingmiut word for “my dear relations” is inuuqatikka, and the title was changed. Inuuqatikka and the artist residency were funded by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Canadian Foundation for Innovation & Ontario Research Fund; Queen’s University Visiting Artists in Residence Fund; Queen’s University Faculty of Arts and Science.

Summer 2020

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ᖃᓪᓗᓈᖅᑕᐃᑦ ᓯᑯᓯᓛᕐᒥᑦ Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios Digital interactive app: tmc-exhibition-pwa.netlify.app

John Houston admiring Caribou (1948), the first work of contemporary Inuit art. Conlucy Nayoumealook (1891-1966) of Inukjuak, Nunavik.

Unidentified artist; cotton; screen-printed; 1950s–1960s On loan from the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative

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COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Rigolet Navigating Changing Tides

by Heather Campbell

Us Indigenous folks like to joke amongst ourselves about “Inuit Time”—that we’re always late for everything—but jokes aside, we do keep time, just not according to the clock: in Nunatsiavut, time is measured by tide. As children, when it came time to move from town to our summer place, you had better believe my grandfather made us hustle! And during berry picking season, too, there was a small window when the water level in Rigolet was optimal to ensure we could get ashore and unload our supplies. As we approached the island, my grandfather had us perch at the bow to watch for rocks so he could navigate to shore. He wanted us to remember the rocks so we could navigate ourselves when we became adults. What happens when Inuit Art Quarterly

sea levels rise and those rocks become submerged? Climate change is threatening life across Inuit Nunangat. Insufficient snow, for example, has numerous knock-on effects: seals struggle to burrow their birthing dens and their pups risk hypothermia; their decreased numbers reduces our access to seal meat and skins for clothes or for selling, upsetting people’s preparedness for the next winter. In Rigolet, the fight against climate change is palpable, and Rigolettimiut experience the effects of negligent climate policy more intensely than people in the South might imagine. This past decade, the controversial construction of the Nalcor Muskrat Falls Hydroelectric Project on the Churchill River 62

inland from Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Rigolet has jeopardized our community’s well-being. Despite large local protests against its construction, Rigolettimiut now question whether we can harvest from the ocean at all because of the threat of poisonous methylmercury leeching from the land flooded by the dam. The political response to our concerns has been dismissive—for example, the MP for St. John’s East, Nick Whalen, tweeted in October 2016, that Indigenous people should “eat less fish” as a solution to the crisis. These events have galvanized the artists of Nunatsiavut, raising questions of how, in this time of climate upheaval, can Inuit artists act as guides in this rapidly changing environment? I am an artist myself, and watching Summer 2020

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT the Muskrat Falls protests over Facebook profoundly affected my art and outlook. My own family members were arrested protecting our lands and waters, and not being able to join them on the frontlines was agonizing. But I realized, as an artist, I have a voice and I would try my best to use it. In response to the destruction promised by the Muskrat Falls development, I painted Methylmercury (2017) and sold giclée prints of it to raise money for the land and water protectors. It has been 23 years since I moved to Ottawa, ON, and though I have been lucky to return frequently, I am not confident in my knowledge of Rigolet’s current climate. I called a few friends and family to ask about how their artmaking has been affected by the threats against our water. As we spoke I realized we are connected through our parallel experiences—our love of home and fear for its future. Though photographer Barry Pottle now lives in Ottawa, he keeps ties to our community, turning his art to the challenges faced by Inuit in urban centres. He spoke of the responsibility he feels to address our polluted waterways and climate change: “What can I do, how can I enhance a conversation using art and the written word?” he asks me. “Artistic expression is one of the strongest vehicles for [these conversations], and we [creators] are some of the first to talk about it, to curate around it.” Much of his photographic work documents the effects of climate change on Inuit life, both in Nunatsiavut and for those living in southern cities, looking closely at the colonial effects on food justice and security. Sculptor Derrick Pottle, Barry’s brother, documents hunting scenes in his work, a fundamentally politically-charged subject. Derrick, who still resides in Rigolet and lives

largely on the land, underlined how an interventionalist attitude from government, industry and anti-fur celebrities have profoundly disturbed the environment and Inuit ways of life:

artistic and community work attempts to address these issues at ground-level, building networks and tools to help residents adapt to the fragility of a changing environment. She refrains from representing climate change out of respect for the other Rigolet artists who have made it integral to their work. She instead focuses her activist energy in her community work in the arts industry, previously as an administrator of the Rigolet Digital Storytelling Project and as a researcher for the eNuk app—a platform that aims to be “an integrated environment and health monitoring program designed by, with, and for Inuit in Rigolet.”¹ The app represents, in microcosm, the need for us all to work together to bring awareness to climate change. It aims to collect knowledge from community members to accurately track the effects of climate change, and issue warnings that can help improve the health of individuals within the community. In Rigolet, art and climate are woven into the fabric of this close-knit community, and there are many more artists who continue to use their work to comment upon the challenges we face today. Whether they are creating sculptures, or textiles, documentaries or climate change data, we all share a common goal: protect our land and our way of life, understanding that it also means protecting the planet as a whole. When we—as Inuit, artists, and Rigolettimiut—say everything is interconnected, I hope you have a better idea now of what that means. I hope that you are listening, and are asking yourselves, “How can I help?”

People still feel fit to come in to disrupt people’s lives, and they face no consequences. At the end of the day we’re still here, it’s our home and where we belong. But we’re losing our culture faster than what we really think we are. And that’s enhanced by these projects, disrupting people’s ways of life. While Barry’s photographs and Derrick’s carvings often highlight what’s missing in the world’s climate response, Jason Sikoak— an artist working in mixed media, drawing and linocut printmaking—has given a monstrous face to the threats of climate change, which can often feel invisible. His drawing, Death of a River (2017), characterizes the Nalcor dam as death itself: “Seeing the images on Facebook of protesters and pictures of this damn dam, and it just looked to me like monster teeth, like a skeleton,” he tells me of his inspiration. “The dam is killing everything. It’s upping the levels of methylmercury and that’s going to be in our food source, killing us all. And all for a few dollars.” Unafraid of offending, Sikoak draws to incite action. He was commissioned by a Muskrat Falls protestor to draw Here’s Your Economic Growth Motherfuckers! (2017), which imagines capitalism as a bio-mechanical monster, “raping the world,” Sikoak explains. “Somebody once asked me, ‘Aren’t you worried your art will be taken as rude?’ and I said, ‘Well, if it gets the point across, I don’t care.’” Back in Rigolet, textile artist Inez Shiwak’s

NOTE 1

For more information on the eNuk app, visit: https://enuk.ca/

OPPOSITE

Barry Pottle (b. 1961 Rigolet) — After the Melt 2008 Digital photograph COURTESY THE ARTIST

RIGHT

Jason Sikoak (b. 1973 Rigolet) — Death of a River 2017 Pen and brush with ink 45.7 × 61 cm COURTESY THE ARTIST

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TRIBUTE

In Memoriam: The Inuit Art Quarterly Remembers

Qaunaq Mikkigak (1932–2020)

PHOTO ART NUNAVIK

Hailing from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, prolific multidisciplinary artist, author and storyteller Qaunaq Mikkigak passed away this winter. Mikkigak enjoyed an extensive artistic career spanning several decades, during which she produced carvings, graphic arts, textiles and literature. Inspired by her family and community to create art from a young age, she began learning throat singing at age three and initially took up sculpting seriously with the support of the co-op system and James Houston in Kinngait in the 1950s. As a throat singer, she began performing and touring professionally in 1970, captivating audiences that included royalty, Canadian Prime Ministers and foreign dignitaries. She also worked on stone carvings, which she considered her primary medium. Mikkigak’s stone work concentrated on depictions of activities traditionally associated with women, such as food processing and preparation and child rearing. The graphic pieces she contributed to the Cape Dorset Annual Print Collection frequently between 1980 and 1986 primarily depicted birds. Beyond these three practices, Mikkigak was also a jeweller and textile artist, producing intricately beaded amautiit and other garments. Later in life, Mikkigak’s passion for ensuring her stories and Inuit culture were passed down to the next generation drove her to author two books: The Legend of the Fog (2011) and Grandmother Ptarmigan (2013). Within her community, she was a dedicated childcare provider, throat singing teacher and storyteller who left an indelible mark as a cherished elder of Kinngait.

Thomassie Tukaluk (1945–2020) Sculptor Thomassie Tukaluk passed away in his hometown of Puvirnituq, Nunavik, QC, in January 2020. Born in 1945 in a camp along the Puvirnituq River, Tukaluk initially studied in a trade school in the South, and began carving in earnest upon returning to Puvirnituq in 1968. Beyond his artwork, he played a prominent role at the Puvirnituq Co-op, serving as a purchase manager and eventually as President. Tukaluk was a passionate advocate for the difficulties faced by carvers in the North, such as challenges with accessing stone. Tukaluk became known for his carved figures of Arctic animals, which he rendered in dark, highly polished local stone. He also frequently depicted images of men and women engaged in domestic activities like hunting, igloo building and seal skinning. He often incorporated small pieces done in bone, antler and sinew in his sculptures to create everything from harpoons to fishing lines and drums. Throughout his career, Tukaluk exhibited across the United States and Canada. His works were also included in the 1997 exhibition Stories in Stone: A Canadian Art Exhibition in Seoul, South Korea. His sculptures are held in public collections across Canada, including the Rothmans Permanent Collection in Toronto, ON, and the Saputik Museum in his hometown of Puvirnituq, Nunavik, QC.

PHOTO JERRY RILEY

Inuit Art Quarterly

Summer 2020

PHOTO JOHN PASKIEVICH

Kakulu Saggiaktok (1940–2020) Kakulu Saggiaktok passed away in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), NU, this winter. Born aboard a Hudson’s Bay Company supply ship in 1940, Saggiaktok spent most of her life in Kinngait where she was among the first generation of artists and printmakers with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in the early 1960s. Preferring to draw images of birds, sea mammals, Arctic animals and Nuliajuk, the sea goddess, Saggiaktok’s work was playful in nature, often capturing people and animals in mid-transformation. Her work was informed by oral history and storytelling, as well as childhood memories of life on the land with her family of hunters and trappers. Throughout her life, Saggiaktok worked in pencil drawings, aquatint and stonecut lithography. She contributed to the Cape Dorset Annual Print Collection twenty-nine times between 1966 and 2014, and exhibited broadly both nationally and internationally. Exhibitions including her works were held in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States. In Canada, her works are held in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, ON, the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa, ON, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, ON.

Master printer and artist mentor

Qiatsuq Niviaqsi

retires after more than 40 years of service with the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative

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2020-04-27 Back1:26 PM

NEWS

Updates and highlights from the world of Inuit art and culture

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OPPOSITE (BELOW)

Exterior of Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit, 2020

Kenojuak Ashevak (1927–2013 Kinngait) — Bountiful Bird 1986 Stonecut and stencil 62.5 × 83.1 cm

PHOTO JORDAN HOFFMAN

OPPOSITE (ABOVE)

De-ICE-olation Video Workshop, 2020 COURTESY INUIT FUTURES

Venue Closures Mean Performance Organizations Must Adjust Programming Performance venues across both the North and South have shuttered, bringing a number of Inuit productions to a halt, including the first performances of Urban Ink’s Sedna, northern preview tours of Akpik Theatre’s Pawâkan Macbeth and early development on a new Qaggiavuut play. “We’re keeping the boat afloat,” says Qaggiavuut Director Ellen Hamilton, working to adjust programming to suit the new reality. For the many companies affected, these measures include making use of previously filmed content and establishing fundraising campaigns to support performing artists. Artist-Specific Support Funding Still Insufficient for Inuit Artists

Inuit Artists Hit Hard by Coronavirus

With galleries closed and cruise ship traffic banned, many Inuit artists are seeing their sources of income dry up during the COVID-19 crisis. Regional response has varied widely, with some co-ops continuing to buy and some organizations rushing to set up emergency funds while the art landscape changes rapidly. “It’s really hard to be creative, when you’re worrying about so much,” said photographer Katherine Takpannie. “All of my gigs have been cancelled for the year,” said throat singer Charlotte Qamaniq. “There’s a lot of uncertainty,” agreed multidisciplinary artist Couzyn van Heuvelen. “It’s tough not to be able to go out and buy supplies.” Even if artists are able to access materials and push past their other worries to create, there is still the matter of getting the work to market. “No one is interested in buying art in uncertain times,” concluded artist and IAF Community Liaison Nancy Saunders (Niap). Inuit Art Quarterly

Territorial and provincial supports have come into place to replace some of artists’ lost income with practice-specific resources such as Nunavut Film Development Corporation’s Short Video Challenge, which aims to fill the gaps for artists not eligible for federal funding. However, many Inuit artists experience greater barriers to these online resources due to limited internet access. Artist, arts administrator and IAF Community Liaison Jesse Tungilik put it most bluntly: “the biggest problem is money, and the sudden lack of access to it.” Inuit Art Market Impacted by COVID-19 At press time, most co-ops at the community level across Inuit Nunangat continue to purchase works from artists, but the future impacts of the crisis on the Inuit art market remain to be seen. In the meantime, the closure of physical gallery spaces has galleries and auction houses adapting to new circumstances including hosting video walkthroughs, digitizing old exhibition catalogues and creating 360° view videos of artworks for potential clients. Summer 2020

NEWS

Katherine Takpannie Long-listed for New Generation Photography Award

IAF Partners with Inuit Futures to Host Virtual Workshops

The early-career photographer profiled in our Spring 2019 issue is among 13 artists longlisted for the New Generation Photography Award, which celebrates three young Canadians working in lens-based art each year with a $10,000 cash prize. Ottawa-based Takpannie’s photographs capture performative and political gestures set against natural and built environments, as well as intimate portraits of women, centring the nuances of urban Inuit life in her practice. Established in 2017 as a creative partnership between Scotiabank and the Canadian Photography Institute at the National Gallery of Canada, the New Generation Photography Award is the only dedicated prize offered to photographers age 30 and under. Winners will be announced in Fall 2020.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Inuit Art Foundation partnered with the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership project to host a series of Inuit artist-led workshops for free online throughout April and May. Aiming to help the Inuit art community stay connected, the De-ICE-olation series took place via video call, showcasing the skills and practices of well-known and award-winning artists. Creators like glassmaker Raeann Brown, designer Victoria Okpik, singer Charlotte Qamaniq, jewellery maker Tarralik Duffy, animator Glenn Gear and sculptor Michael Massie taught everything from parka making to photography techniques, crafts for children, beadwork, carving and more. Virtual workshops that taught culturally specific skills, such as throat singing, were reserved for Inuit-only audiences.

Bountiful Bird Blasts Past Estimated Value at Auction

asinnajaq wins $25,000 Sobey Art Award Longlist

The 1986 lithograph by Kenojuak Ashevak CC, RCA, surpassed auctioneers’ expectations, selling at ten times its projected value during Waddington’s February Inuit Art Auction. Appraisers valued the print at $2,000– $3,000. “It’s impossible to project what an enthusiastic collector will pay for an item they passionately want,” said Tess McLean, who oversees communications and marketing for Waddington’s. A spirited round of bidding saw Bountiful Bird sell for $28,800, including buyer’s premium. “Passion rules” in the art business, concluded Waddington’s President Duncan McLean.

Filmmaker and curator asinnajaq became the first Nunavimmiut artist longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. Rather than proceeding to a shortlist, this year the award was split between 25 artists, each receiving $25,000. The honour follows several milestones for asinnajaq, who recently co-curated Isuma’s presentation at the Venice Biennale and had her film Three Thousand (2018) nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2018 Canadian Screen Awards. She is also co-curating the inaugural exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Inuit Art Centre. The Inuit Art Foundation would like to extend our congratulations to asinnajaq!

Taqralik Partridge Named Director of Nordic Lab at Galerie SAW Gallery Artist, writer and curator Taqralik Partridge has been appointed Director of the Nordic Lab at Ottawa’s Galerie SAW Gallery, a research and production space for artists from circumpolar nations that promotes artistic exchange. “The circumpolar North is undergoing dramatic changes,” explains Partridge, an IAQ Advisory Council member. “Artists here—as everywhere else in the world—are important witnesses to, and active participants, in the happenings of their time. This new space at SAW presents a timely opportunity for circumpolar artists to come together in conversation with a focus on the North. I am happy to have this chance to work with communities in the Ottawa area and artists working in countries across the Arctic.” The 2020 Sydney Biennale, Winnipeg Art Centre and Others Go Online NIRIN, the 2020 edition of the Sydney Biennale, included aabaakwad, a program of events focused on Indigenous arts featuring artists, curators and thinkers from more than 24 First Nations and 13 countries. In response to the growing threat of coronavirus, Artistic Director Brook Andrew moved programming online, ensuring that the festival’s global audience would be able to continue accessing Biennale projects remotely. The Biennale is now available through Google’s Arts + Culture platform for free. Other arts organizations, such as the National Arts Centre, have moved their programming online, organizing paid performances on their Facebook page. Museums like the Winnipeg Art Gallery also pivoted to a virtualfirst audience, adapting portions of exhibitions such as subsist for their online space. Get the full news story faster at: inuitartfoundation.org/news

Water

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LAST LOOK

Mark Emerak The Great Whirlpool (Kalaniyaaktok) Mark Emerak (1901–1983 Ulukhaktok) — The Great Whirlpool (Kalaniyaaktok) 1987 Stonecut 50.8 × 64.7 cm COURTESY WINNIPEG ART GALLERY

Inuit Art Quarterly

The blue spiral of this stonecut creates a hypnotic effect, drawing our gaze directly to the centre in a mesmerizing gyre, reminding us that water, for all its beauty and everything it provides, possesses awesome powers that we would do best to respect. The story goes that Mark Emerak (1901–1983) based this image on a tale he heard of a man telling another man to avoid rowing his boat to a certain place in the water, where it would be sucked down into the deep. Not believing the warning, the second man rowed his boat to the spot and was never seen again. Although Emerak only began drawing at the age of 65, The Great Whirlpool (Kalaniyaaktok) highlights the precision and delicacy he honed in his short career. This piece is a departure, however, from his other works, which heavily feature scenes of hunters and families living in traditional camps that he observed hunting on the tundra of the Western Arctic. Despite his late beginnings, Emerak produced over 900 drawings of traditional Inuit activities and practices, with 41 of those transferred into stonecut and lithograph prints. Emerak himself never partook in the printing process, but his unique perspective and bold lines translated beautifully to the medium. At the outer edges of the whirlpool, discernable outlines of flotsam and the suggestion of a figure being perilously pulled into the current conjure an inescapable fate. As someone who lived through traditional means on the land outside of Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), NU, for over 50 years, Emerak was more than familiar with the danger of taking the ocean for granted. Yet broken lines trace the outermost circle, intimating waves rippling outward. In a landscape governed by the movement of water in all its forms, this piece conveys the beauty that arises from the dangerous and sometimes chaotic, but life-giving element.

Summer 2020

KAT I LV I K

Katilvik: A Gathering Place Waddingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s created Katilvik in 2006 as a virtual resource centre for those who were passionate about Inuit Art. This spring we are proud to launch an even better Katilvik, now encompassing Canadian Indigenous Art. Katilvik: a place to discover, learn and research unique works of art and the dynamic artists who create them.

www.katilvik.com

The TheDefinitive Definitive Source Source for for Inuit Inuit Art Art

Shuvinai ShuvinaiAshoona Ashoona

Hand-coloured Etchings Etchings Hand-coloured

Artworks, top to bottom (details): WHEN I GREW OUT CAME THE SNAKE, 2019, 37 x 47 - THE BEAUTY OF A RED ROSE, 36 x 47” Artworks, top to bottom (details): WHEN I GREW OUT 2019, 37 x 47 - THE & BEAUTY OF A RED ROSE, 36 x 47” MOUNTAIN OF CLAMS, 2019, 36 xCAME 47” -THE EachSNAKE, edition of 8 - 2019 - Etching hand-colouring MOUNTAIN OF CLAMS, 2019, 36 x 47” - Each edition of 8 - 2019 - Etching & hand-colouring

www.feheleyfinearts.com - gallery@feheleyfinearts.com - 65 George Street, Toronto - 416 323 1373 www.feheleyfinearts.com - gallery@feheleyfinearts.com - 65 George Street, Toronto - 416 323 1373