Inuit Art in Motion

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Inuit Art in Motion explores spiritual transformation through drum dancing, a major theme in Inuit art. Twenty stone and bone drum dancers, dancing bears, hunters, mothers, and figures in motion - all from the permanent collection of Inuit art at the AGO - are brought together to examine the continuum of transfigurative moments that connect the “real” or everyday with the spiritual in Inuit culture. Each of the 20 sculptures in Inuit Art in Motion marks a frozen moment within this continuum. Drum dancing celebrates the connection and the interdependency over time and place of all living beings on nuna (the land) where every human being and every animal responds to the same beat of their tarneq (their soul). The choreography of sculptures in Inuit Art in Motion into relationships based on movement over time and space allows the individual works to perform together in a grand expression of life and cosmology in the Arctic.

Curated by Sarah Laakkuluk Williamson and Anna Hudson.