TV Head (c. 2002)

“Then comes the end.” So concludes Jutai Toonoo’s (1959–2015) razor sharp, apocalyptic visioning of the undoing of culture in this piercing sculptural work. In TV Head, the head of a woman clad in an amauti (woman’s parka) is replaced with a television, whose endless news ticker of plight and destruction fills the screen. Created at the turn of the century, the permeable anxiety associated with the 24-hour news cycle, with its unrelenting imagery of societal collapse and devastation, is here paused and suspended in stone. Reminiscent of other political critiques by contemporaries such as Alootook Ipellie (1951–2007), Toonoo’s TV Head remains a sharp reminder of what is lost in the ceaseless onslaught of information, connectivity and modernity. Toonoo’s is a forceful reminder to carefully consider what is lost in the name of “progress”. Not a pretty future certainly, but a potential one nonetheless.