The Inuit word “katajjait” is usually translated in English by “throat singings” – katajjaq is the singular. Actually, in Inuktitut (the Inuit language) katajjaq refers to a game where two women imitate animal voices and natural sounds like the one from feet walking on the ice or the one from the wind and the sea. [...]

I never learn how to speak English. Also, I was never taught how to be an artist, but I’m not a really good artist, but I have tried. [...] When I was a boy, I used to try to do carving. I only started drawing seriously when drawing was encouraged in Pangnirtung by Gary Magee.
Before [...]

The text “What it means to be an Inuk” was written in August 1960 by Abraham Okpik who was the first Inuk appointed to the Northwest Territories Council in 1965. Reading this text, I was really impressed by the accuracy of Abraham Okpik’s reflection on the fact that Inuit live the Qallunaat’s way to the [...]

This week, I let you share the extract of a text written by Minnie Aodla Freeman, an Inuit woman, accomplished writer and translator:
Although I am neither an artist nor famous, I was involved with these artists [in Kinngait] as an Inuit writer. […] The woman artists were all born here or in the outlying camps. [...]

Kananginak Pootoogook : “We like to keep our culture through carvings and prints. Those art pieces are very valuable : they tell of the past.” (1)
Pitaloosie Saila : “You don’t just do drawings […] you express yourself. It is also a way of life, a part of life. Life is sometimes heavy […] you have [...]

The Kinngait community is located on the south west coast of Baffin Island on the Foxe Peninsula of Baffin in Nunavut territory (Canadian Arctic). 1236 persons live there (Statistic Canada 2006) including about 95% of Inuit and 5% of Qallunaat (non Inuit).
Qallunaat people generally use the English name “Cape Dorset” to talk about the community [...]

The representation of a mother and her child in sculpture is not a frequent subject in the Inuit art contrary to the qallunaat art (not Inuit) where this topic appears in the religious as profane representations. This theme remains relatively recent in the history of Inuit art although it is more present in contemporary graphics [...]

But what is an inuksuk*? Characteristics of the Arctic Regions, inuksuit are simply stony piles (inuksugait in inuktitut) which the silhouette sometimes looks like humans… But let us Paaliin Pilip, an Inuit author Inuit from Iqaluit, explain it :
Inuksugait always had a very big utility. They had different meanings. Inuit had at first two wayss [...]

Artistic diversity
The contemporary Inuit artistic production in the Arctic is extremely rich and varied considering the used practices and techniques as individual and local styles.
Each artist works according to his/her own individual and family experience which inspires its creations. The iconographic subjects, the styles and the way of representations which result from it determine the [...]

The immediate environment and individual experiences as well as collective (related to the history of families and arctic communities) are the main sources of artistic inspiration, including themes represented from shamanism and imagination.
Since its beginning in the 1950’s, contemporary Inuit art intends for the international art market - North America and Europe in particular – [...]