Rolanda Alikammiq Hanniliaq

Rolanda Alikammiq Hanniliaq is an artist from Igloolik, NU, who works with a wide variety of materials to create beautiful earrings. Hanniliaq sells her work through social media across Canada. “I think most of the provinces and territories have a pair of my earrings,” [1] she says about her social media success. 

Hanniliaq began creating in September 2020, after seeing a number of Inuit artists creating earrings, chief among them Elisapee Avingaq. She is predominantly self-taught; she began working first with animal skins before moving quickly to arctic char fish skin—which she catches, cleans and tans herself—and then to caribou antler and beads. Caribou antler and bead earrings quickly became her favourite things to create, since she loves beading around the antler edges. “I can’t stop!” she says. “I love making them!” 

One of the central tenets of Hanniliaq’s work is experimentation. She loves developing both new designs and shapes for her earrings and trying out different mediums. Her materials list has grown to include ivory, sealskin, fox and polar-bear fur, moosehide, leather, caribou tufting, abalone, plastic and dentalium, a type of tooth- or tusk-shaped mollusk shell. 

Hanniliaq will be featured on Uvagut TV in March 2022. Her work was recently spotlighted when Inuk TikTok star Shina Novalinga modeled some of her jewellery for Elle Canada magazine in March 2022. Hanniliaq is considering setting up a TikTok account to share her own creations, as well as potentially teaching her techniques to others. However, she plans to hold off until her four small children are a bit older. For now, “I want everyone who likes earrings to see my work,” she says.

This Profile was made possible through support from RBC Emerging Artists.