Connecting to Mother Earth
Even when we’re alone we can connect. We are connected because we share this Earth. We connect through our stories, through myths and legends, communicating how we see the world and sharing our unique vision and interpretation of the world around us.
Germaine Arnaktauyok has won a 2021 Governor General’s Award for artistic achievement in visual arts. She was nominated by Darlene Coward Wight, curator of Inuit Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, who noted that Arnaktauyok has been an artist for more than 60 years, during which time she “charted her own course and created her own unique visual language.”
Arnaktauyok created “Mother Earth,” the image above, with mixed media: pen and ink with pencil colour, her tools of choice when creating original artwork, she told us.
“There is a very unusual kind of story that, in the old days, women didn’t get pregnant,” Arnaktauyok says in response to a question from the Star about what this particular image meant to her. “The Earth was like a mother and if you wanted to have a baby, you had to look for it.
“When creating ‘Mother Earth’ I tried to draw the womb and baby as realistic as I could imagine. I drew what a woman’s womb would be like underground with the baby in the placenta and you can see the canal opening. This is where my imagination was going when I read about this legend and created ‘Mother Earth.’”
There is a fluidity to the image: the mother’s braid connects to the child; the fringe from her shawl connects to the earth suggesting roots.
In her nomination, Wright quoted Arnaktauyok as saying, “When I was a child, it seemed natural for me to make art. I can remember drawing on gum wrappers and any bits and pieces of paper I could find … I never questioned being an artist. It seems I knew exactly what I wanted to be and then I just worked at it.”
By sharing her vision through Inuit stories and culture we are inspired to consider our connectedness.
Other artists who won 2021 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts this year include Hamilton, Ont.’s Bryce Kanbara for outstanding contribution and Toronto’s Cheryl L’Hirondelle for media arts. Find out more about the artists and other winners at en.ggarts.ca.