Inuit Prints – Japanese Inspiration debuted at the Canadian Museum of History, chronicling the often overlooked links between the Japanese print-making tradition and the first generation of Kinngait (Cape Dorset) artists and printmakers, established by the influence of James Houston. The exhibition reminded audiences of the contemporariness of Dorset prints, and placed the makers within a global network of art-making.
2014 marked a significant year for the Inuit Art Quarterly, with our revival issue honouring the late Kenojuak Ashevak launching in January 2014 after a publishing hiatus spanning back to 2012.
Elisapee Ishulutaq was appointed to the Order of Canada. A significant milestone for the artist and the artistic community in Panniqtuq, as she was last living contributor to the community’s inaugural print collection in 1973.
In a watershed moment for Inuit music production, Tanya Tagaq received significant mainstream recognition for her album Animism. In 2014, Animism won the Polaris Prize, a Juno for Aboriginal Album of the Year and was nominated for Alternative Album of the Year. Animism and its praise brought global attention to throat singing and earned Tagaq world-wide fame.
Inuit Fantastic Art opened in May at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, a revival of an influential exhibition in the 1970s that challenged the constrictive Inuit art marketplace that tended to value realistic carvings of animals and the quotidian parts of Northern life. The exhibition featured work by Eli Sallualu Qinuajua and many from Qamani'tuaq (Baker Lake) artists including Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik, Simon Tookoome, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, Janet Kigusiuq, and Myra Kukiiyaut.
Arctic Adaptations – Nunavut at 15 took home a special mention at the 2014 Venice Biennale of Architecture. The exhibition looked at Nunavut’s burgeoning architectural tradition, and its relationships to global modernism.