A sneak peek at Isuma’s installation in Venice and their collateral projects
Isuma Canada Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition/La Biennale di Venezia VENICE, ITALY
On May 11, 2019, Inuit media art will take a central position on the international stage when Iglulik- and Montreal-based collective Isuma launch their installation at the newly opened Canada Pavilion in Venice, Italy, including their recent feature film One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk. The team reveals their plans to occupy both physical and digital spaces with Indigenouslanguage content:
From May to November 2019 at the 58th International Art Exhibition/La Biennale di Venezia, we are showing our newest video work One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk. The film recreates a day and encounter in April 1961, when Inuit life on the land changed forever. Filmed near Kapuivik in North Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island), NU, where the event occurred almost 60 years ago, images and sound of the installation will fill the Canada Pavilion as visitors walk through or stop to watch one of the screens.
As artists working in today’s global media environment and in the United Nations’ International Year of Indigenous Languages, we present other elements of our exhibition online, accessible on Biennale visitors’ smartphones as well as to Inuit or global viewers anywhere. Silakut Live Inform and
Consult is a series of live online webcasts from Iglulik, NU, and the Arctic wilderness, focused on Baffinland Iron Mine’s proposed 2019 expansion and its impact on the nearby Inuit communities of Iglulik and Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), NU. Isuma on iTunes links to One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk as well as other Isuma and Indigenous-language films on iTunes’ global platform in Canada, Italy and thirty other countries worldwide. The films are offered with subtitles in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. Elsewhere, IsumaTV presents the complete archive of Iglulik video production since 1985, over 7,000 Indigenous films and videos in 75 languages, a digital catalogue of the exhibition, including behind-the-scenes photos, both English and Inuktut scripts of One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk and background on Isuma’s collective history using media to strengthen Inuit cultural and human rights in Canada and globally. For the hub of Isuma’s Exhibition in Cyberspace please see www.isuma.tv. – Isuma Artist Collective