Atautchikun | wâhkôtamowin: A Curatorial Talk by Kablusiak
In partnership with Emerging Curators Institute and FD13 residency for the arts
Wed, Feb 1, 5:30 pm
All My Relations Gallery
Photo credit: Cinic Studio
Inuit have always engaged in and responded to contemporary dialogues, media, and technologies. Stereotypical conventions around Inuit art since contact—i.e. works depicting traditional Inuit activities and scenes of northern animals—have created a false canon of Inuit art that does not take into account or represent the contemporaneity, breadth, or depth of Inuit culture, nor their art forms. This curatorial talk will speak to Inuit art histories, presents and futures through the exhibition Atautchikun | wâhkôtamowin (Remai Modern, Saskatchewan, 2021-2022), co-curated by Kablusiak and Missy LeBlanc. The exhibition began with a selection of works from the Remai Modern’s permanent collection that push against the notion of a culture frozen in time. These works were put in relation to new commissions by artists connected to Inuk artists represented in the museum’s collection as well as artists with ancestral connections to the lands the host museum occupies. Like the exhibition, Kablusiak’s talk aims to continue generative discussion on the threads that tie Inuit to Indigenous communities of the south.
About Kablusiak
As a multidisciplinary Inuvialuk artist and curator, Kablusiak seeks to demystify Inuit art and create space for diverse Inuit-led representation. Their artistic practice uses humor and Inuk ingenuity to engage materials such as lingerie, Sharpies, bed sheets, felt, acrylic paint, and words to invite empathy and solidarity to explore diasporic cultural displacement, family and community ties, and impacts of colonization on Inuit gender and sexuality expressions, health and wellbeing, and the everyday. Kablusiak’s recent and upcoming exhibitions include Qiniqtuaq, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis (2023), Up Front, Onsite Gallery, OCADU, Toronto (2022), After Care, Mitchell Gallery, MacEwan University, Edmonton (2022), and ublaak tikiyuak, artspeak, Vancouver, BC (2020). Along with Atautchikun | wâhkôtamowin, Remai Modern, Saskatchewan (2021-22), their recent co-curatorial work includes INUA, the inaugural exhibition of 90 artists working across Inuit Nunangat and beyond at Qaumajuq, the Inuit Art Center, Winnipeg Art Gallery (2021-22). Kablusiak is based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary AB).
The Emerging Curators Institute is designed to build the individual practices of emerging curators from diverse backgrounds through an in-depth research, professional development, and presentation program.
FD13 residency for the arts invites national and international artists to Minnesota to create new, experimental work and present it live.
All My Relations Arts honors and strengthens relationships between contemporary American Indian artists and the living influence of preceding generations, between artists and audiences of all ethnic backgrounds, and between art and the vitality of the American Indian Cultural Corridor.
