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Join a discussion with the artists of the 2023 Nocturne project “Qiaqsutuq,” led by the curators, as they reflect on their experiences and inspirations for this deeply moving collaboration on connecting to and caring for the land.

In Inuktitut, qiaqsutuq is the sound of the whistling wind and the sound of crying. In this multimedia installation created by five artists from across Inuit Nunaat (from their Inuit homelands in Alaska, Canada and Greenland) qiaqsutuq is critically imagined as a lament for nuna, tariuq, and sila, a chorus of its Arctic inhabitants from the land, sea and sky. 

As glaciers melt, permafrost warms, floods abound and smoke billows north from forest fires, weather becomes unpredictable, and thus dangerous, in the Arctic. Featuring the distinct perspectives on the impacts of climate change by Iguttaq (Bee Woman), Tuktu (Caribou), Nanuq (Polar Bear), Tulugak (Raven) and Natchik (Seal), these harbingers warn of the fast approaching consequences of our collective inaction on the precious life throughout Inuit Nunaat.

Created at NSCADU’s CIMADE Lab and produced by Inuit Futures and the Inuit Art Foundation, this artwork is the result of an artist incubator that took place in the summer of 2023 in Kjipuktuk/ Halifax. Nocturne is an independent, free, contemporary art festival in Kjipuktuk/Halifax presented by the Nocturne: Art at Night Society.

The Artists

Jamesie Fournier (Nunavummiut / Yellowknife )

Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Denaa and Iñupiaq / Anchorage)

Coco Lynge (Kalaaleq Greenlandic/ Denmark)

Malayah Maloney (Nunavummiut/ Vancouver)

Taqralik Partridge, (Nunavimmiut / Ottawa)

The Curators

Heather Igloliorte (Nunatsiavummiut)

Alysa Procida

Carla Taunton