New Exhibit - In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun
As the title of the exhibition, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun, suggests, Canada’s Inuit people and Scandinavia’s Sámi people share the same northern latitudes. But if geography is a jumping-off point for the artists in this expansive, unexpected show, it isn’t destiny. Many of the works — which date between 2000 and 2005 — juggle indigenous traditions and information-age influences. The variety of techniques and media — from wall-filling abstract paintings to delicate objects crafted from bone and sinew — and the mood and breadth of subject matter point to the wide range of current artistic practices in the North.
Curator Jean Blodgett is wary of making generalizations about a show that features 47 artists from across the Arctic Circle, but she did find affinities among the Sámi and Inuit cultures. “At first, all I could think of was that, well, yes, both groups live far north,” Blodgett says over the phone from her home near Fairbanks, Alaska. “But in fact, that’s a very strong connection between them. It’s not just a factual observation.”
“Their feeling for the land has a strong effect on their art,” Blodgett says. “There are these emotional connections with the places that they live, and with the plant and animal life there.”
Blodgett also wants to acknowledge that the artists’ current landscape goes beyond plants and animals to include satellite TV, Nintendo and Pepsi. Much of the work in the exhibition grapples with rapid technological change and with issues of individual and cultural identity in a shifting social environment. “Many artists are coping with this issue of ‘Where do I fit in the scheme of things,’ whether it’s their culture or their family.”
Originating with the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and showing at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun will stop in Whitehorse and Ottawa before travelling to museums in Scandinavia.
(All images courtesy the Winnipeg Art Gallery)
source:CBC -Alison Gimor
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/arts/498/
