Conversations: Inuit Identities and Vitalization

Artist’s website: https://www.allisonwarden.com/

Allison Akootchook Warden is an Iñupiaq performance, rap and installation artist born in Fairbanks, Alaska with close ties to Kaktovik, Alaska. Her most recent work, "siku/siku" debuted at the Arctic Arts Summit in Harstad, Norway in 2017. In 2016, she debuted "Unipkaaġusiksuġuvik (the place of the future/ancient)" at the Anchorage Museum. "Unipkaaġusiksuġuvik (the place of the future/ancient)" is a performative installation of an Iñupiaq ceremonial house that exists in the space between the hyper-future and the super-ancient. Warden was physically present in the installation for almost 390 hours over the course of the two month exhibition. She received both a 2015 Rasmuson Fellowship and an Art Matters grant in 2016 to support this work.

Warden received a 2018 Rasmuson Individual Artist Fellowship in the field of New Genre. She intends to travel to Abu Dhabi to do research for "Everybody Will Be A Millionaire", a collaboration with Iñupiaq photographer Brian Adams, which will debut in 2024. Warden received a 2018 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship in the field of Music. In 2015, Warden received an Alaska Governor's Awards for the Arts and Humanities for her work with youth across the state of Alaska. In 2013, she received a Connie Boochever Fellowship in performance art from the Alaska State Council of the Arts and a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award for performance art in 2012. Her one-woman show, "Calling All Polar Bears" debuted at Pangea Theatre with Intermedia Arts in 2011 as part of a National Performance Network (NPN) residency. The show virtually takes the audience to Kaktovik where they meet characters such as a polar bear, a seal and people in the village who explain the complexities surrounding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It has toured to Berlin, Germany as well as London, England, and the communities of Anchorage and Homer in Alaska. Allison currently resides in Fairbanks.

AKU-MATU

What would a polar bear say if he could rap? Or a caribou, or a whale? What about if an Ancestor came back so far from the past that it actually circles around and becomes the future? Warden explores these themes and more in her music, bringing her training in theatre to the stage. AKU-MATU has performed at the STOFF! performance art festival in 2011, at the Lavaklubi (part of the National Theatre of Finland) in 2013, at Columbia University in New York City in both 2010 and 2012. AKU-MATU recently performed for over 1000 people in Paris, France as part of the world climate meetings. AKU-MATU has also performed numerous times for her favorite audience, the high school students of Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska. AKU-MATU will be performing at the Riddu Riddu Music Festival in 2018 as part of the Inuit Circumpolar Hip-Hop Collaboration. AKU-MATU is the abbreviation of two of Warden's Iñupiaq names, Akootchook and Matumeak. Akootchook was her Amau (great-Grandfather), and Matumeak was her Attata (great-Uncle) and was known for composing original songs.

Text from: Allison Akootchook Warden https://www.allisonwarden.com/bio.html

Photo: Courtesy of Allison Akootchook Warden by Erik Hill © Erik Hill

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska

Contributor: Dawn Biddison

Christine Tootoo is an enigmatic and captivating actor in film and theatre actor, recently starring and collaborating in Kiviuq Returns, Qaggiavuut's Inuit theatre epic that toured southern and northern Canada in 2017. Kiviuq Returns also had its world premiere in Nuuk, Greenland at the Nunatta Isigiinaartisisarfia in September 2018, as well as a month-long run in January 2019 at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto; Christine was involved in both of these productions.

Christine starred as Ani in the feature film Iqaluit by Quebec Director Benoit Pilon in 2016. She has toured as a drummer and throat singer with the Inuksuk Drum Dancers to Ottawa, P.E.I, Whitehorse and Grand Prairie during her high school years. Christine is an experienced button accordion player, mentoring with renowned Inuit masters, Simeonie Keenainak and Zeebedee Nungaq and Jeannie Nungaq. She has also facilitated youth workshops throughout Nunavut, and has worked with over 400 youth in the past two years teaching traditional pisiit (songs), throat-singing, and acting.

Christine has completed two artist residencies for new productions, Unikkaaqtuat, which toured across five cities in Western and Northern Canada, as well as Ikumagialiit, which premiered at the National Gallery of Canada.

Links to projects:

https://www.qaggiavuut.ca/en/inuit-world-artist/christine-tootoo

http://www.ikumagialiit.com/

https://www.artcirq.org/en/stage/unikkaaqtuat-unikkaa-q-tuat

Photo by: David Kakuktinniq, Jr. © Christine Tootoo

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska Contributor: Dawn Biddison

Dr. Heather Igloliorte (Inuk, Nunatsiavut) holds the Tier 1 University Research Chair in Circumpolar Indigenous Arts and is an associate professor in the Department of Art History at Concordia University. She also serves as the Special Advisor to the Provost on Advancing Indigenous Knowledges, and in this role contributes to the efforts of the university Indigenous Directions Leadership Group. Her teaching and research interests center on Inuit and other Native North American visual and material culture, circumpolar art studies, performance and media art, the global exhibition of Indigenous arts and culture, and issues of colonization, sovereignty, resistance and resurgence.

Heather is the Principal Investigator of the 2.5M, 7-year SSHRC Partnership Grant, Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq/ Pijariuqsarniq Project (2018-2025), which aims to empower circumpolar Indigenous peoples to become leaders in the arts through training and mentorship. With Professor Jason Edward Lewis, Heather also Co-Directs the Indigenous Futures Cluster (IIF) in the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology. Through Milieux, Igloliorte works with collaborators and students to explore how Indigenous people are imagining the future of their families and communities. Heather has been a curator for fourteen years, and currently has three exhibitions touring nationally and internationally; she is also the lead guest curator of the inaugural exhibition of the new Inuit Art Centre, INUA, opening at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2020. Heather publishes frequently; she has co-edited special issues of journals PUBLIC 54: Indigenous Art: New Media and the Digital (2016) and RACAR: Continuities Between Eras: Indigenous arts (2017), and her essay “Curating Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit: Inuit Knowledge in the Qallunaat Art Museum,” was awarded the 2017 Distinguished Article of the Year from Art Journal.

Igloliorte currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Circle for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, working on the development of the new national Inuit Art Centre; is the President of the Board of Directors of the Inuit Art Foundation; and serves on the Board of Directors for North America's largest Indigenous art historical association, the Native North American Art Studies Association, the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and the Nunavut Film Development Corporation, among others. Heather has previsously served as an Executive Member of the Board of Directors for the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective (2005 - 2011) and as the President of artist-run-centre Gallery 101 (Ottawa, 2009 - 2011) in addition to other advisories, juries and councils.

Text from: Concordia University https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/art-history/faculty.html?fpid=heather-igloliorte

Photo: Courtesy of Heather Igloliorte © Heather Igloliorte

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska

Contributor: Dawn Biddison