Susan Avingaq

Susan Avingaq is a director, art director and set designer in film based out of Iglulik, NU. She has worked extensively with Isuma Productions and Arnait Video Productions, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Avingaq is also a renowned storyteller and seamstress and an active teacher of sewing traditions in the local area. Avingaq’s experience hunting and camping on the land influences the work she wants to share in film. She still enjoys teaching new people skills on the land [1].

Avingaq has been a regular participant in Arnait Video Productions projects since its inception in 1991 [2]. Arnait Video Productions creates works featuring women’s stories and reflects traditional and contemporary Inuit styles of narration [3]. Avingaq is an actor, performer and storyteller, and has worked in production in costume design, art design and as a cultural consultant. She served as Art Director for the films Before Tomorrow (2008) and Uvanga (2013). In 2014 she co-directed the documentary SOL, which investigates the death of an Inuk youth and the underlying social issues of Canada’s north [4]. She also wrote the children’s books Fishing with Grandma (2016) and The Pencil (2019). Avingaq is also an active textile artist and regarded as a leading seamstress in the Eastern Arctic. She sews clothes, kamiks and mitts for many people [5]. She is passionate about passing these skills onto youth in the area. Her sewing work is closely tied to her motivation for involvement with Arnait Video Productions; it is about women working together and showing what they do [6].

Avingaq has been nominated for and won many awards for her films including winning Best National Feature for SOL at the 2014 Montreal International Documentary Festival and Best Documentary Program at the Canadian Screen Awards, as well as Best Documentary for Anaana at the 2003 ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival. In 2016 and 2017 Susan became one of the four master storytellers and elder advisors to the play Kiviuq Returns: An Inuit Epic, and received the 2017 Elder Award from the Inuit Heritage Trust for her contribution to Nunavut arts [7].