Exhibition Review: Qillaniq

As a diasporic Inuvialuk who grew up in the Dehcho Region of the Denendeh, there were a number of works in the National Gallery of Canada’s (NGC) new show Qillaniq that strongly resonated with me. The exhibition, which opened on June 11, 2026, in Ottawa, ON, was curated by an all-circumpolar Indigenous team: Ooleepeeka Eegeesiak, Liisa-Rávná Finbog/Rámavuol Liisa-Rávdná, Taqralik Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen, Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, and Laakkuluk Williamson.

I was particularly drawn to Leading the Way Home (2025–26), an installation made by Inuvialuk multidisciplinary artist Maureen Gruben. The goose wing quills standing up from the plywood panels remind me of the Dehcho: From afar, the installation is reminiscent of caribou hair tufting—prickly before the hair is trimmed into a smooth design—but up close, the quills remind me of being surrounded by birch trees in winter and seeing their interweaving shadows against the snow.

The shadows cast by Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara’s reindeer skull installation, Pile o’ Sápmi Supreme (2017), also gave me a deeper appreciation of the work. Upon first seeing the installation, I was full of wonder at its scale, but the shadows added a haunting aspect I hadn’t anticipated. Each skull has a bullet hole, but I found that my eyes were drawn to the eye and nostril holes when viewing the front of the piece and to the teeth when viewing the back of the piece, so it wasn’t until I saw the stark pale circular holes against the floor and how the skulls were stretched with the shadows that I felt a heavier presence to the piece. 

Qillaniq follows the NGC’s Sakahàn (2013) and Àbadakone (2019–2020) exhibitions in the gallery’s recurring series of large-scale, survey-style exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art, and the curators focused on the circumpolar North for this iteration. The title, Qillaniq, is an Inuktitut word that describes how light from the sun or moon shimmers brightly when reflecting on water, and through this exhibition, the curators have shone a light on the numerous contemporary Indigenous artists across the North who have unapologetically expressed themselves, their culture, and their joy through artmaking and continue to do so. More than 80 works by dozens of contemporary circumpolar Indigenous artists are presented, many of whom are nationally and internationally recognized, including Kablusiak, an Inuvialuk multidisciplinary artist who won the 2023 Sobey Art Award; Melaw Nakehk’o, a Dene/Dënesułińe multidisciplinary artist who is shortlisted for the 2026 Sobey Art Award; and Inuuteq Storch, a Kalaaleq photographer who was the first Kalaaleq artist to represent Denmark at the 2024 Venice Biennale.


Installation view of Qillaniq

As impressive a feat as that is, I felt that the scope of the exhibition was so broad that I struggled to sense how the works are in conversation with each other. The mediums spanned drawing, installation, film, painting, photography, print, sculpture, textile, and a video game, which can lead to a delightful and engaging spread of works in an exhibition if it has a focused theme. However, the range of mediums was paired with a geographic range which spanned not only Indigenous artists from the circumpolar Arctic—including Inuit, Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Kalaallit, Nenets, Sámi, and Yupiit artists—but also regions that overlap with or are within the circumpolar subarctic—such as Buryat–Mongolian, Dene, Gwich’in, Lingít, Northern Tutchone, Sakha, and Unangan artists—as well as a couple southern artists who collaborated with a northern artist. This resulted in dozens of distinct sentiments expressed within the exhibition, and while many could be grouped into themes such as climate, sovereignty, subsistence, and queerness, the works varied so much that they felt at times unanchored.


Installation view of Qillaniq

I would expect this to occur to some extent in any group exhibition, but I was surprised to sense this even with works displayed in the same room. Many of the larger pieces are installed apart from other works by necessity—such as Honoring the Ordinary (2016), a sand, wood, and cotton muslin piece by Dena’ina artist Joel Isaak that invokes the salmon run and towers above gallery attendees at 4.6 metres. However, the physical space between smaller works, such as Bolatta Silis-Høegh’s Ukaliusat (2019) and Melissa Nenantaxnen Shaginoff’s Moose Hide Love Poem (2024), as well as how many were partitioned or set in alcoves, served to emphasize the metaphorical distance between the works for me; the core sentiments of individual works vary so much that the exhibition at times felt more like a series of independent installations.

The breadth of region within the exhibition is an integral part of the NGC’s recurring series; Sakahàn included contemporary Indigenous artists from more than a dozen nations, and Àbadakone surpassed that at around 40 nations. This framework caters to an everyday gallery attendee, one who may have little to no context of many of the artists featured within and is going in eyes wide open. As someone with personal relationships to both Arctic and subarctic communities in this country, I am more aware of our cultural similarities—which were highlighted in the exhibition with the land-based materials and berries themes—but I am also aware of how our lands and our histories have shaped us in distinct ways. This is also true for Inuit across Inuit Nunangat, as we are often mistakenly viewed and treated as a monolith and presumed to have more in common with each other than with our neighbours in Alaska and Kalaallit Nunaat. I applaud the NGC for transcending borders within this exhibition series, but I also believe that a narrower geographic spread of artists, such as circumpolar Arctic or circumpolar subarctic, would have led to a more cohesive exhibition.

At the end of the day, though, I am glad that Qillaniq has introduced audiences to so many intriguing and powerful artworks and the incredible artists who made them—and, since many are still working, I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for more of their works in the future. In the meantime, I’ll be heading to the NGC again before the exhibition closes on September 20, 2026, and spending some more time with the works, especially the qaggiq, which Inuk artist asinnajaq and Métis artist Tiffany Shaw made as a place to rest and offer space for community and conversation—a cultural element that transcends all borders.