This holiday season, gift-givers sending parcels via Purolator will have a chance to select festive packaging featuring Inuk artist Aedan Corey’s designs.

Corey is a writer, visual artist and traditional Inuit tattooist originally from Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), NU, and currently based in Ottawa, ON. They are among 13 emerging artists, one for each province and territory in Canada, selected to create designs for Purolator’s 2022 limited-edition holiday boxes. Each artist was nominated by one of the artists featured for the project in 2021. 

Aedan Corey Courtesy the artist

The collection of specially printed boxes is inspired by families and communities
gathering and sharing food over the holidays. In keeping with this theme, Corey’s designs feature colourful scenes of an Inuit family sharing a meal and lighting a qulliq.

“The holiday season in Nunavut is often spent by sharing in tradition with friends and family; whether this be by traditional foods eaten or lighting the qulliq (traditional oil lamp),” says Corey in a statement on the Purolator website. “I wanted my holiday box to capture the beauty of Inuit culture as we celebrate the holidays. This is different than some other cultural celebrations, but also comfortingly similar in the meals shared, the memories made and the traditions passed on.”

Corey was the subject of an Artist Profile in the Spring 2022 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly. In 2022 they produced the digital series Tamaniitugut (We Are Here) as part of a series of artist projects commissioned by the IAQ. Corey is the author of the chapbook INUUJUNGA (Coven Editions, 2020) and their short story “Anaanatiaq” appeared in Nipiit Magazine in 2020. 

As part of this year’s holiday programming, Purolator will be donating to food banks across the country through its Tackle Hunger initiative, helping to provide access to nutritious meals through established food banks including the Niqinik Nuatsivik Nunavut Food Bank (NNNFB) in Corey’s home territory of Nunavut.