Interview: Bart Hanna

Migration, a monumental ship with a cast of unique characters carved from a single block of stone weighing over 700 pounds.

The Iglulik artist discusses Migration (2013), his largest and most complex artwork to date. In this exclusive interview Hanna reveals details of the work’s creation, as well as the stories of migration and relocation that inspired the piece.

That same year, IAF Executive Director Alysa Procida interviewed Hanna about this significant work when it was shipped to Toronto for display.

Alysa Procida: This piece is so incredibly detailed. How long did it take you sculpt this?

Bart Hanna: This one, maybe six to seven months. It’s not that big, but it’s the most detailed, and it’s the most work I’ve ever done, so you might as well say it’s the biggest piece. Hopefully all the pieces after this will be as big or better. That’s what I’m aiming at now.

AP: Was there something about this piece that made you want to make it really detailed?

BH: Since I had to get the stone all the way from Arctic Bay,1 when I was working on the stone I thought about how long it took to get it and how much work it was. I tried not to waste too much and only threw out very small pieces.

AP: Since Migration is carved from a single piece of stone, it must have been huge. How did you get it out of the ground and bring it back?

BH: This stone was lucky enough to be on top of the other rocks, on the mountain side of Arctic Bay. You have to climb up the hill with

the skidoo and a qamutiik (sled), but it can’t be too heavy because otherwise you won’t make it. To get the stone for Migration, we put it on a qamutiik with steel sliders and tied another big stone behind it to drag through the snow, so it wouldn’t slide too fast. We tried to control it, but the stone was so heavy the rope snapped and it hit a bump, or a rock, and flew up in the air. We thought the qamutiik would be broken, but it landed nicely on one side and nobody got hurt.

AP: Oh, that was lucky! When you went to get the stone, were you looking for a particular piece because you had this sculpture in mind, or did you find this piece and know that you wanted to carve this?

BH: It was kind of that shape, almost like a bow, and [it made me] think of a boat right away. This boat is like one from a dream my grandfather had—it’s a shaman’s boat. [Editor’s note: In a further written version, the artist explained in his grandfather Kappianaq’s dream, his father George Agiaq Kappianaq was healed of an infected hip by visiting shamans who arrived via ship.] I wanted to put as many carvings as possible on that boat, but not too many inside.

Good shamans were good servants; they were like doctors. If someone was sick or hungry [they would] provide food or cure them through supernatural powers. When the shamans were doing their ritual they had to [travel] a long distance, to fly to the spirit. They were travelling to the spirit [in my grandfather’s dream].

AP: I want to ask you about some of my favourite parts of the piece. This sculpture reminds me of a Viking boat, and I was wondering why there’s a dragon head on the front.

BH: I put that there because I think [Kappianaq] saw a dragon in his dream, even though [he] never said, because there’s no [Inuktitut word for] dragon. They needed a spirit [that] answers to the shaman. I put that dragon head on because that boat is like a dream—it’s moved by the shamans, and so, it has to be special.

AP: The person at the front of the boat, is that your grandfather? Or is that a shaman?

BH: That would be a shaman. It could be my grandfather. My relatives—my ancestors— were shamans.

AP: And the walrus standing behind him, what does that figure represent?

BH: Also a shaman, but maybe coming from the Vikings. He has an anchor on his shoulder. I put him in there because the Vikings were the first ones up here. That’s part of it too.

I had to make those guys part of it because they were a big help, bringing tea and [trading] rifles. They had to become part of [Migration], because they were part of us anyway. Tobacco, tea and biscuits and everything else from the South, we needed that; it was a great help.

AP: Behind the walrus, is that also a shaman combing Sedna’s hair?

BH: That one and the other woman are Sedna’s personal hairdressers, her helpers. Like anyone in high places, she had her own people. Sedna is so important, like a queen. Sedna is so important to me. I have to put her in when I make things.

I’m not a writer, I have to put it in the stone. My feeling is to share it with other people and hope they try to understand.

AP: And the last person on the boat?

BH: The one with traditional clothing is important in the boat: he’s like us. People weren’t always shamans, you had to become one. That’s the meaning of it. Like anyone else, you start working by sweeping the floor, and later on in life, you become very good at something. I’ve been carving a long time and still, I want to become better.

AP: Is that a polar bear at the top of the narwhal tusk?

BH: That would be a [lookout] bear, to see if there’s any land or ice nearby. Polar bears are very important for someone like me— a hunter. When we go on the ocean, they’re mostly on the ice. Some are pretty good, but some are mean. They have different attitudes, like people. There are a lot of bears now, more than ever.

AP: Speaking of hunting, you have used baleen, a narwhal tusk and two walrus tusks for this piece. Did you hunt any of these animals yourself, or did you get them from people in your community?

BH: The narwhal tusk I got from my friend, [and so,] I kept it for a long time. He gave it to me as a Christmas present, maybe 7 years ago. It took a long time [to carve], I think maybe a couple of weeks. I had to work long, long hours and I put all my energy in— everything I had. The walrus tusks I had to hunt in the springtime. I don’t go out too much in the winter anymore because it’s kind of dangerous.

AP: The title for this piece is interesting, in part because it makes me think of another series of pieces titled Migration by Joe Talirunili from Puvirnituq. Did that influence you at all?

BH: Yes, I’ve seen it; I think in an issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly. A whole bunch of little people in a boat. I’d like to make one similar to that, but I wanted to make this one different from the others.

AP: RJ [Ramrattan, Showroom Manager at Canadian Arctic Producers] and I were talking, and we were saying that it reminded both of us of more recent history in the Arctic, where certain families were forced by the government to move between places, particularly the relocations to Qausuittuq (Resolute Bay) and Ausuittuq (Grise Fjord).

BH: It was very hard for them. And sometimes, it’s very hard for me because I don’t want to be mad. What they did to me— when they took us to the residential school— it’s a similar feeling. It was very hard leaving our parents. For us at least, we were put in a warm place and going to school every day, but those families were brought to an alien land that they didn’t know. People were starving, hungry, and the government wasn’t very honest with them. Things like that, it hurts. I’m hurt and sometimes it’s very hard.

AP: I can’t imagine how horrible any of that would have been, especially as a young child. Because you were born on the land, you weren’t born in a community, right?

BH: I was born on the land and we were always out there. In the summertime we’d live in tents. In the winter I remember living in a house. I was too young, but I knew at 7 years old I had to go to the residential school. We were forced to go with the nuns. I think the nuns thought, “We have to be like mothers to them.” But they were very different from our mothers. As a child I was very aware and it was very hard. They [the Royal Canadian Mounted Police] started putting us into the communities. It was a sudden change.

The government also started changing names then. I was Bartholomew Hanna, but my grandfather’s name was Kappianaq.

AP: You have signed your works Bart Hanna, but you also sign your last name Kappianaq too, is that right?

BH: Yes, my last name is Kappianaq. I was named after a white missionary [and] given the name Bartholomew Hanna, but Kappianaq is important because that’s my grandfather’s [name], and that’s what Migration is about.

AP: There’s also a medicine bag on the boat. Is that a reference to your sick father?

BH: That would be for people, to cure them; shamans were very important for that.

Not because they have a medicine bag, but for us we need to see something that we don’t know; we need to look at something, an object. With the medicine bag, it transfers a shaman’s word, or doctor’s or anything. That story—grandfather’s story—that’s the guy who carries the medicine bag, so that’s why I put that.

AP: It’s interesting because this is one of the things that got me thinking about the relocations. One of the reasons the government gave for moving some Inuit off the land and into communities was that they were sick. Were you thinking about any of those things?

BH: Maybe [the move] was good, because there was a nursing station and a life could be saved. There’s a lot of things I have put in there that I think about a lot. It’s all the things that happened, and all the energy I have to put out to become a better person. And what happened in the past, all the feelings I have and what happened to me and others, loved ones. All [of] that has to be in there, even though it’s not just one story.

AP: Do you think it’s important for people in your community to see this kind of work?

BH: I think it’s very important because there’s some pain in there. I’m not a writer, I have to put it in the stone. My feeling is to share it with other people and hope they try to understand. [I want people to feel] inspired. Maybe happy, but also inspired. [That is] most important. I hope they’re inspired: people, children and artists. I hope it’ll help a bit.

This interview was conducted in the Spring of 2013. It has been edited for clarity and condensed.