June 17 – September 10, 2017
SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut
Guest curator: Heather Igloliorte
Organized by // Organisé par The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery Division, St. John’s, NL. This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada and by the Nunatsiavut Government. Ce projet a été rendu possible en partiegrâce au gouvernement du Canada et au gouvernement du Nunatsiavut.
Nunatsiavut, the Inuit region of Canada that achieved self-government in 2005, produces art that is distinct within the world of Canadian and circumpolar Inuit art. The world’s most southerly population of Inuit, the coastal people of Nunatsiavut have always lived both above and below the tree line, and Inuit artists and craftspeople from Nunatsiavut have had access to a diverse range of Arctic and Subarctic flora and fauna, from which they have produced a stunningly diverse range of work.
Artists from the territory have traditionally used stone and wood for carving; fur, hide, and sealskin for wearable art; and saltwater seagrass for basketry, as well as wool, metal, cloth, beads, and paper. In recent decades, they have produced work in a variety of contemporary art media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, video, and ceramics, while also working with traditional materials in new and unexpected ways.
SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft from Nunatsiavut is the first major exhibition on the art of the Labrador Inuit. SakKijâjuk — meaning “to be visible” in the Nunatsiavut dialect of Inuktitut — provides an opportunity for visitors, collectors, art historians, and art aficionados from the South and the North to come into intimate contact with the distinctive, innovative and always breath-taking work of the contemporary Inuit artists and craftspeople of Nunatsiavut.
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Dr. Heather Igloliorte is an Assistant Professor of Aboriginal art history at Concordia University in Montreal. Her research interests centre on Inuit and other Native North American visual and material culture, circumpolar art studies, performance and media art, the global exhibition of Indigenous arts and culture, and issues of colonization, sovereignty, resistance and resilience.
Image: Chesley Flowers, The George River Herd (1995-1996), Wood and antler. 121.92 x 121.92 cm. The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, Memorial University Collection. Photo: Ned Pratt Photography.
