I am very new to the art world, but I am pleased to start my journey of experiencing and absorbing Inuit art because it seems to speak more to me than other art. Perhaps because I grew up with it in close proximity throughout my childhood. It makes me hopeful that by spending time around Inuit artists, I will feel confident enough to understand and engage directly with the process of generating art or speaking its language more fluently.
Jessica Winters talks about a notion that I have only ever felt, but not yet articulated to myself. My anaana’s and anaanatsiaq’s hands are beautiful. My anaanatsiaq’s hands generate love. She makes things for us; bannock, tea, atigiit, qilliaaluit, and patched items of clothing, and they hold the back of my own hands while she tells me she loves me. She wants to teach me, her granddaughter, and I want to learn.
By being together as a group of Inuit at the Arctic Art Summit, by creating our own stories and creating content, we invigorate and empower ourselves, while fostering confidence and developing and strengthening our support system. This work by Jessica Winters speaks to this process of togetherness, sharing, and creating together. It resonates with the objective of the Arctic Art Summit; to gather together as an extended family of Northerners. Sharing our skills and learning from each other is how we become more whole in our own selves, and in our communities.
The Arctic Arts Summit’s Knowledge Creators Next program brings together northern Indigenous post-secondary students, young activists and emerging professionals to attend the Summit. Participants in the Knowledge Creators Next (KCN) program will be sharing their daily reflections—in the form of tweets, photographs, poems, sketches, videos or other short responses—on the Arctic Arts Summit’s digital platform and across social media.
