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inuit art transformations

Transformational works sometimes refer to specific myths or stories but more often they simply represent the ability of animal and human spirits to move about and inhabit each other’s bodies. Inuit artists are uniquely capable of portraying transformation as they are just as comfortable depicting an event in the process of occurrence as they are with depicting a static image or scene. The concepts of transformation, spirit helpers and spirit flight cannot be separated from one another. The shaman is helped by his or her familiar, and/or turns into an animal, and/or relates to the beings of the animal world in a special way. The knowledge of a shaman is profoundly experiential or participatory. The shaman not only communicates with animals, but becomes one.