As 2025 comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of the notable stories that shaped Inuit arts this year—from exhibitions and festivals to awards, albums, books and language and culture projects. The highlights below are just a glimpse of the work that artists have done this year across Inuit Nunaat.
Installation view of Tarralik Duffy's work at the 2025 Sobey Art Award Exhibition, National Gallery of CanadaCOURTESY NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA © THE ARTIST
Tarralik Duffy Featured in the Sobey Art Award Exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada
On October 3, the 2025 Sobey Art Award Exhibition opened to the public. The exhibition includes work by the six shortlisted artists from across the country, including Circumpolar category finalist Tarralik Duffy and 2025 winner Tania Willard, from the Pacific category. “My favourite part about art is that I don’t have to think about that. . . . I make the art, but the interpretation is not my job,” Duffy said during the Sobey Award press conference when asked what she hopes people take away from the exhibition. The exhibition is on view at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, ON, until February 8, 2026.
Suialaa Arts Festival Returned in October
From October 23 to 26, Nuuk, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), hosted the biennial Suialaa Arts Festival (formerly known as Nuuk Nordic Culture Festival), with venues from the Nuuk Kunstmuseum (the Nuuk Art Museum) to Katuaq to Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia (the National Theatre of Greenland) and Nunatta Atuagaateqarfia (the Central Library of Greenland) offering exhibition space, performances, readings, seminars and workshops. With dance, theatre, music, literature and visual art, the 2025 edition highlighted cross-Arctic exchanges and the city’s role as a cultural hub in Kalaallit Nunaat.
Heather Campbell Nuliajuk and Icebergs (2019) Pen and ink on paper © THE ARTIST
Heather Campbell Receives the Canada Council for the Arts Honorary Recognition of Cultural Carrier Award
On August 12, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded three people Honorary Recognition of Cultural Carriers for their artistic and cultural work in supporting the use and promotion of Indigenous languages. The 2025 recipients include artist, curator and researcher Heather Campbell, originally from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, NL, and currently based in North West River, NL; Sandrine Masse; and Lisa Myers. The $10,000 award celebrates sustained leadership in arts, language and culture, recognizing their contributions to the ongoing strengthening of language and culture.
Qikiqtait ᕿᑭᖅᐃᑦ Opened at the Canadian Museum of Nature
The exhibition Qikiqtait ᕿᑭᖅᐃᑦ: Where Inuit Knowledge and Innovation Come Together opened at the Canadian Museum of Nature on September 26. This exhibition is the first of its kind to bring together Inuit-led research, environmental stewardship, and education, and celebrates the work of Inuit from Sanikiluaq, NU, as they care for their homeland. Developed in collaboration with the Arctic Elder Society and Polar Knowledge Canada, the exhibition shares the traditional harvesting of eider down—known as the warmest feather in the world—and innovation through Inuit knowledge, film and technology. The exhibition is on view until September 6, 2026.
© THE ARTISTS
PIQSIQ Released a New Album
PIQSIQ, made up of throat singers and sisters Tiffany Ayalik and Inuksuk Mackay, released Legends (2025) earlier this year, an album grounded in Inuit stories and improvisation. The record earned two Canadian Folk Music Award nominations for Indigenous Songwriters of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, with the winners to be announced in April 2026. Read our interview with the band here.
Circumpolar Artists to be Featured at the Luleåbiennalen (Luleå Biennial)
Planning began this year for Luleåbiennalen (Luleå Biennial), Scandinavia’s oldest art biennial. This edition of the Luleåbiennalen will consist of public gatherings and talks from 2025 to 2027, and exhibitions at several locations in spring 2027. Sámi artist Carola Grahn and collaborators, including New Red Order, Lea Simma and Wolf Babe Collective, will organize the biennial. The guiding ideas of the biennial focus on imagining futures in the North and the ways culture can be part of that future. The first public events took place in the fall in Luleå, Sápmi (Sweden), with a series of “Meet the Luleåbiennalen” panels where attendees could learn more about the biennial.
Throat-singing duo Silla, Cynthia Pitsiulak (left) and Charlotte Qamaniq (right), performing at Nuuk Nordic Culture Festival (now Suialaa Arts Festival), 2023 © THE ARTIST
Silla Released a Double Album
Inuit throat-singing duo Silla, composed of performers Charlotte Qamaniq and Cynthia Pitsiulak, marked a major year with the two-part release of Inua on June 21 and Sila Is Boss on July 9, which the band say is meant to honour and celebrate tradition while also looking to the future. Inua features traditional Inuit throat-singing and the raw experience of it, while Sila Is Boss blends traditional throat-singing with contemporary sounds, including guitar and electronic music. For both albums, Silla worked with producers from Kalaallit Nunaat and Nunavik, and musicians like Qamaniq’s brother, Kevin Qamaniq-Mason. They also worked with visual artists across Inuit Nunangat, who made cover art for each track, making this a truly circumpolar project.
Tanya Tagaq Releases Her Second Picture Book, I Would Give You My Tail
Published April 8, Tanya Tagaq’s second picture book, I Would Give You My Tail, follows young Kalluk on a journey as he leaves camp to tell his grandmother that his mother is about to give birth. Along the way, he has many encounters with nature that inspire his happiness and gratitude for life. Illustrated by Kinngait, NU, artist Qavavau Manumie, I Would Give You My Tail is Tagaq’s second children’s book, after It Bears Repeating (2023), which was nominated for a 2025 Governor General’s Award for Literature, and is her third publication following the acclaimed novel Split Tooth (2018), which was longlisted for the Giller Prize in 2018.
Installation view of Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait, 2025Courtesy McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait
From March 8 to August 24, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, ON, presented Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait, curated by then Associate Curator, Indigenous Arts and Culture Emily Laurent Henderson (also a former editor at the Inuit Art Quarterly). Gathering more than two hundred works from the Kinngait drawings archive, the exhibition foregrounded themes of intergenerational knowledge transfer, community and boundless imagination and showcased work by well-known artists like Kenojuak Ashevak, CC, ONu, RCA (1927–2013) and Pudlo Pudlat (1916–1992), while also introducing artists less well known to Southern audiences, such as Aoudlaluk Qayuaryuk and Atamik Tukikie. The companion catalogue, Dreaming Forward, featuring texts by Henderson and other writers, artists and thinkers, was also released this year.
KIMIK Celebrates 30 Years of Artistic Collaboration
KIMIK, the artists’ association of Kalaallit Nunaat, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. They celebrated the milestone with a group exhibition at the Nuuk Kunstmuseum in the summer, featuring works by more than half of their member artists. KIMIK was founded in 1995 and, since 2002, has been based in a workshop in Nuuk’s old harbour. Notably, the work of two KIMIK members has graced Inuit Art Quarterly covers recently: Ivínnguak` Stork Høegh’s ethereal collage portrait Eqqarsaatit // Thought (2023) appeared on the cover of our fall 2024 issue Arctic Indigenous Futurisms, and Julie Edel Hardenberg’s head-turning cotton straitjacket Rigsfaellesskabspause (2005) was on the cover of summer 2024’s issue Activism & Access. You can read more about how KIMIK advanced art in Kalaallit Nanaat here.
Installation view of Stitches We Share: From Grandmothers’ Hands to Ours, Port Union, 2025 COURTESY INUIT ART FOUNDATION
The Bonavista Biennale Highlighted Northern Voices on the Atlantic Coast
The 2025 Bonavista Biennale, String Games, curated by IAF Board Past President Dr. Heather Igloliorte in collaboration with Rose Bouthillier, the Biennale’s Artistic Director, once again brought together a variety of exciting works by artists and collectives from Canada and abroad. On view from August 16 to September 14, the biennale featured artwork by several Inuit artists, such as Nunatsiavut artists Sarah Baikie, Andrea Flowers (1934–2019) and Nellie Winters LLD (hc), curated by their respective granddaughters. You can read about our conversations with the co-curators of the exhibition Stitches We Share: From Grandmothers’ Hands to Ours here.
Revival: Printmaking in Nunavik (2014–2019) at the OAG
Organized by the Avataq Cultural Institute and curated by Qumaq M. Iyaituk from Ivujivik, Nunavik, QC, Maggie Napartuk from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, QC, currently based out of Inukjuak, Nunavik, QC, and Lyne Bastien, the travelling exhibition Revival: Printmaking in Nunavik (2014–2019) made its Ontario debut at the Ottawa Art Gallery this year from April 11 to August 24. The exhibition showcases the resurgence of linocut printmaking in Nunavik in recent years. Featuring works by 27 artists from across Nunavik, including Passa Mangiuk, Mary Paningajak and Leah Qumaaluk, the show traced a recent resurgence in linocut printmaking sparked by regional workshops, with subjects ranging from legends and customary practices to everyday life.