• Feature

How Do You Illustrate Water?

Drawn From Water

Jul 13, 2020
by Emily Henderson and Napatsi Folger

Inuit relationships to water—to oceans, inland lakes and rivers—has been one of storytelling and survival for generations. In this Portfolio, the IAQ investigates these links with the shore, the surface and the deep and what those spaces mean for everything from the spiritual lives of Inuit to food harvesting practices. 

With nearly every community across Inuit Nunangat clustering along-side the jagged coastlines where land meets sea, the shore means access to the waters on which people depend and its bounty of resources beneath. Community harbours represent vital aspects of the local economy, a haven for sealifts carrying goods from the South, or as a place to leave fishing boats bobbing in the waves that roll in from the open sea. In traditional food harvesting, preparation and butchering often begin immediately at the shore, with animals skinned and portioned on the rocks of the beach, or harvested in the shallows using fishing weirs. Although the shore and the deltas of rivers that feed into the sea represent the nascent point of Inuit relationships to the water they rely on, it can also represent danger, and Inuit oral history is rife with stories of creatures from the deep that snatch children who stray too far from their parents along the shorelines. 


AnguhalluqTonyTwoInuitAreOutCamping

Tony Anguhalluq
Two inuit are out camping for the summer in July and are out fishing by the east side of Baker Lake (2017) Coloured pencil and oil stick 56.5 × 76.2 cm
COURTESY MARION SCOTT GALLERY


WeetaluktukSimonWalrusAndBear

Simeonie Weetaluktuk
Walrus and Bear (c. 1960) Stone 14.6 × 12.7 × 5.1 cm
COURTESY WADDINGTON’S


KigusiuqJanetBackRiverLandscape

Janet Kigusiuq
Back River Landscape (2003) Coloured pencil 56.5 × 76.2 cm
COURTESY WADDINGTON’S


ScottieSimonSummerCamp

Simona Scottie
Summer Camp (1982) Coloured pencil 22.9 × 30.5 cm 
COURTESY ART GALLERY OF GUELPH 


EtidlooieSheojukFishWeir

Sheojuk Etidlooie
Fish Weir (n.d.) Coloured pencil and graphite 22.9 × 65.5 cm 
REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION DORSET FINE ARTS  COURTESY WADDINGTON’S © THE ARTIST


This Feature was originally published in the Spring 2020 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.


See the Surface

See the Deep

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