Sanannguanitigut Makitaqatigiinniq Standing Together Through Art Debout ensemble à travers l’art
ᓴᓇᓐᖑᐊᓂᑎᒍᑦ ᒪᑭᑕᖃᑎᒌᓐᓂᖅ/ Sanannguanitigut Makitaqatigiinniq / Standing Together Through Art / Debout ensemble à travers l’art is an online exhibition that brings together 12 Inuit artists—among them Pasa Mangiok, Akinasi Partridge, Maggie Napartuk, Niap and more— whose work bears witness to the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic among Nunavimmiut who reside in both Nunavik and outside the region. It is curated by Janique Johnson-Lafleur and myself.
Sanannguanitigut Makitaqatigiinniq evolved from two separate ideas, one from the Avataq Cultural Institute, where I am a programs officer, and the other from a project Janique collaborates with, called Atautsikut.
Atautsikut is a community of practice project that supports Inuit and non-Inuit workers involved in youth mental health and wellness in Nunavik, including community workers, nurses, doctors, social workers, rehab workers and other practitioners.
The overall goal of this project is to encourage collaboration among workers to improve health outcomes and community wellness.
Artist Mary Paningajak Alaku had been invited to create illustrations for the program. Then the pandemic shut every thing down. Still, the Atautsikut team wanted to invite Mary and other ar tists to make illustrations—or anything ar ts related—about the pandemic.
I was initially involved in the Atautsikut project as an ar tist (under the name Ulivia Uviluk), but when the pandemic disrupted their plans and they had the idea to expand it in a new direction, I told Janique about what Avataq envisioned: a vir tual project where we could bring together Inuit ar tists from Nunavik making different types of masks in response to COVID-19. Quickly, we made the choice to merge the two projects together—to invite ar tists to make ar t pieces related to how they felt during the pandemic.
In November 2020 we released a call for ar tists, and the artists have been working on their pieces independently since then. Some of the par ticipating ar tists were up nor th and others down
south; we weren’t able to gather, so we checked in with the ar tists vir tually and one by one they contacted us when they finished.
This exhibition features ver y diverse reactions to COVID-19, and it ’s touching how all of the ar tists interpreted the project dif ferently. Their stories, both about the processes of creating the work and the ar tworks themselves, are ver y hear tfelt. One of the ar tists, Kili-Ann Desrosiers, is a mother and she was pregnant at the time. She was able to spend her time in quarantine involving her young son in this ar tistic project.
Some of the artists made work about the social issues that were happening during that time—the Black Lives Matter movement, Joyce Echaquan, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the unmarked graves that have been found on Residential School sites across Canada. Some of the other ar tists felt the need to express their own mental states during lockdown. The vir tual exhibition website pairs the works they made with their stories through text as well as video.
One ar tist, Hannah Took too, recently returned to Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, QC, af ter finishing her visual ar ts degree at Dawson College in Montreal, QC. She explained how when the pandemic star ted, ever ybody felt the urge to be productive, but she was overwhelmed by that idea, because everything was shut down. For her, it felt like it was time to breathe and not focus on productivity. Other ar tists said the opposite—that they were finally able to create during lockdown.
Robert (Robbie) Watt made a piece called Covid Dance (2021), full of characters with scared expressions on their faces. That piece
is about that COVID dance—the tension between taking measures to stay safe and being worried about ever y thing, but still needing to live your life.
Mary Paningajak Alaku created two drawings for the exhibition that reflect on how COVID-19 has changed the whole world, even the tiny communities of Nunavik that are so far away from everyone.
Coop (2021) shows people lining up in a co-op wearing masks, and all the same spacing habits that we had in the South imposed in tiny northern communities, too. We can even see the signs about COVID-19 precautions in Inuk titut on the wall! I feel representation like that is ver y impor tant. To me, this piece feels like being seen. Since the star t of the pandemic, I’ve been stuck down south but wanting to be up nor th. I’ve been watching the communities in Nunavik undergoing all these changes from the pandemic, but remotely instead.
The pandemic has caused such a sustained and challenging feeling of disconnection for people. For me, hearing the participating ar tists talking about how they have been feeling during this time— their creative inspirations, their fears, the changes to their everyday lives—it makes me feel less alone. Although it ’s unlikely we’ll be able to bring these ar tworks and ar tists together for a physical exhibition, Janique and myself are excited for audiences around the world to find a lit tle connection and a lit tle less loneliness of their own through this project.
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Olivia Thomassie is a young ar tist and activist who works at Avataq Cultural Institute as a program agent to suppor t Nunavik ar tists. She makes beaded pieces and has directed three films with the Wapikoni Mobile.