Elisapie Featured on New Canada Post Stamp
Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie is featured on a new Canada Post stamp to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21. Anishinaabe Elder and water-rights activist Josephine Mandamin (1942–2019) and Métis visual artist and environmentalist Christi Belcourt will also get stamps as part of the new set. These three individuals were chosen for their environmental advocacy and championing the rights and cultures of their Inuit, First Nations and Métis communities. On June 13, Elisapie’s stamp was unveiled at a reception at the McCord Museum in Montreal, QC. Originally from Salluit, Nunavik, QC, and currently based in Montreal, Elisapie has won two Juno Awards, including the 2024 award for Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year for her album Inuktitut (2023). In addition to music, she is also an experienced filmmaker, with her directorial debut in 2003 for the documentary If the Weather Permits.
Twice Colonized Wins Best Feature-Length Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards
Twice Colonized (2023) won the prize for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 2024 Canadian Screen Awards on May 31 in Toronto, ON. The film follows the life of Kalaaleq lawyer Aaju Peter over seven years, while she works to bring her colonizers in Canada and Denmark to justice after her son’s unexpected death. Peter was a co-writer on the film, which was directed by Lin Alluna and co-produced with Inuit filmmakers Alethea Aggiuq Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald along with Emile Hertling Péronard and Bob Moore. Inuk actor Alexis Vincent-Wolfe from Iqaluit, NU was also nominated for best performance in a supporting role for her work in the Inuit science fiction horror film Slash/Back (2022). Earlier this year, Twice Colonized was nominated for Documentary of the Year at the Danish Film Awards.
National Gallery of Canada and Ottawa Art Gallery Partner to Support Indigenous Artists, Cultural Producers and Communities
On June 5, 2024, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) announced a partnership that they say will support the cultural sovereignty of Indigenous artists, cultural producers and communities by promoting Indigenous art locally, nationally and abroad and supporting Indigenous leadership in the arts. The new program will begin with an exhibition of works by Haudenosaunee artist Jeff Thomas curated by Rachelle Dickenson, who recently joined the NGC’s Department of Indigenous Ways and Decolonization. NGC Director and CEO Jean-François Bélisle says, “This partnership is an important part of our ongoing commitment to relationships with the First Peoples of this land and growing understanding of what reconciliation means.”
Reneltta Arluk Named a 2024 Library and Archives Canada Scholar
Reneltta Arluk is among five individuals who have been named 2024 Library and Archives Scholar Awards recipients. Recipients were chosen for their remarkable contributions to the creation and promotion of Canada’s culture, literary heritage and historical knowledge. Arluk is an actor, playwright, poet, director and Inuit Art Foundation Board Member of Inuvialuit, Dene and Cree descent from the Northwest Territories. She has participated in and initiated the creation of Indigenous theatre across Canada for over 20 years. Last month, it was announced that Arluk will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta on June 21. Other recipients of the LAC Scholar Award are comic artist Kate Beaton, journalist and television and radio host René Homier-Roy, author Rohinton Mistry, and writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo.
Ulivia Uviluk and Laila Labba to Participate in Artist Residency at Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš
The Visual Arts Centre (VAC) and Avataq Cultural Institute in Montreal, QC, have announced the participants of the 2024 circumpolar artist residency exchange with Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš (SDG) in Karasjok, Norway. They are Ulivia Uviluk, an Inuk multidisciplinary artist from Kangirsuk, Nunavik, QC, and Laila Labba, a Sámi illustrator from Karasjok. Uviluk’s practice includes film, beading and writing, and in 2019 her work was exhibited in the Contemporary Native Art Biennale at La Guilde in Montreal. Labba works with analogue and digital drawing, painting and printmaking with a focus on Sámi culture, nature and modern life. Uviluk and Labba will travel to Nunavik and Sápmi, and the residency will conclude with an exhibition of their work at the VAC’s McClure Gallery in 2025.