DICTIONARY: Chonk / tʃɒŋk / slang 1 something that is thick, round, and chubby, ideally said with affection or humour. 2 oversized. chonky adjective

After working in a couple different galleries with collections of Inuit art, I began to notice the abundance of artwork that stood out to me as “chonky”—but initially all I knew was that these delightful works went beyond an anthropological, illustrative “these are observations of the everyday.” “Chonk” is internet slang taken from the word chunk, referring to something that is thick, round, and chubby, ideally said with affection or humour. Chonk can be applied to the animate and inanimate, animal and human, and might also mean oversized. After some thought and reflection, I see a relationship between artwork depicting chonk within collections and the growing trends within contemporary cultural production online. These artworks have to do with representation and taking up space, acting as catalysts for visual sovereignty for Indigenous artists. Chonk isn’t the reason the artworks incorporate these themes, but rather chonk within artwork is an outcome and expression of these actions.

It doesn’t take long to find examples of chonk within artworks, like the rounded form of Fanciful Ptarmigan (1969) by Luke Iksiktaaryuk (1909–1977). I was once jokingly told that ptarmigans were “arctic chicken;" they’re important because if there is no other food, ptarmigans are always there and you can eat them. [1] It’s not novel to say Fanciful Ptarmigan is an image of an animal that you can eat, but beyond that I’d like to ask what it means that the bird is bright red and yellow, with a generous little belly. Iksiktaaryuk’s subject matter varied from stories of giants, war, hunts, and angakkuit—his larger body of work demonstrates an intimate knowledge of the land and stories. Given his willingness to disseminate Inuit cultural knowledge through his artwork, I think Iksiktaaryuk’s depiction of ptarmigan can be seen as a celebration of the birds in the artist’s community of Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), NU, a nod to the role they play, and a signal of abundance. 

A still of Chantal Jung's 2020 animated music video for Black Belt Eagle Scout's song “I said I wouldn’t write this song” (2019)© THE ARTIST

Chantal Jung's 2020 animations for Black Belt Eagle Scout’s song “I said I wouldn’t write this song” (2019) and Linda Infante Lyons’ The Kal’ut Madonna (2022) accomplish a similar goal. The Kal’ut Madonna is part of Lyons’ Icon series, portraits of Alaska Native women and animals like seals that use the halo as a device to communicate the importance of and connection between human and other-than-human figures to non-Indigenous audiences. Jung’s music video animation depicts a person carrying a basket of aqpiit, and when they fall out, various animals and sea creatures spring forward, speaking to a larger reciprocal ecosystem. Both of these works use chonk to speak to abundance and centre Indigenous viewership to understand the meaning and stories. 

Linda Infante Lyons The Kal’ut Madonna (2022) Oil 76.2 x 76.2 cm COLLECTION ANCHORAGE MUSUEM © THE ARTIST

Chonky depictions of animals may also speak to the nuances of animal life that can only be observed at close proximity. For example, Fox Takes Off Her Fur After She Eats a Ptarmigan (2022) is Amber Webb’s imagining of the foxes around her home after they’ve been satiated—voluptuous and full. The sexual representation of the form celebrates the abundance and life cycles of foxes and ptarmigans, and recentres notions of beauty within an Indigenous worldview. While images like this can be chalked up to anthropomorphism within storytelling or transformation, I would describe the works more as the act of finding the gestures of the fox relatable rather than superimposing human traits on it—it’s a subtle difference, but it’s the difference of not being human-centric. These representations go beyond snapshots, or the idea that animals solely serve as sustenance. Pieces like Parr's Children Chasing Dogs (1966), where domesticated dogs (evidenced by their generous bellies) are playing with, being chased by, and dragging children, show what our day-to-day interactions with other-than-humans are. 


Amber Webb Fox Takes Off Her Fur After She Eats a Ptarmigan (2022) Ink 40.6 x 42.2 cm © THE ARTIST

While a majority of these images are positive depictions of relationships between animals, I’m wary of romanticizing the relationship between human and other-than-human. The extensive body of work of Pitseolak Ashoona, CM, RCA (c. 1904–1983), for example, often represents round birds with sharp little glares and curved claw feet, which are sometimes attacking people or animals. This is something Arctic terns are notorious for, especially when you go too close to their nests. It’s these quirky nuances that add a necessity for lived experience to access the narratives, and these works are examples that challenge the idea that artistic production was and is limited to faithful observational depictions—making the chonk part of the cheekiness. Arguably, the chubbiness of their subjects is part of a culturally specific visual language. 

Parr Children Chasing Dogs (1965) Stonecut 62.2 x 85.7 cmCOURTESY WAG-Qaumajuq © THE ARTIST
This visual language is also readable in depictions of people—Mother and Child (c. 1953) is one of a number of sculptures by Akeeaktashuk (1898–1954) featuring large women's bodies with delicate focus on details. Rather than suggest these are representations of bodies Akeeaktashuk saw, or that he worked with the shape of the stone, I question what it means to present larger bodies while lovingly carving details of amautiit and kamiit. Even for the forms that Akeeaktashuk carved, this mother and child is an exaggeration in scale, possibly interpreted as a response to the weight of carrying a child, the weight of caring for a child, or even a playful poke at the exhausted feeling after having a baby. Innately, Mother and Child confronts our biases around the body, in particular women’s bodies, and the conditions where largeness is allowed or condoned. Although the sculpture likely wasn’t made with this intent, by acknowledging the omnipresence of fatphobia we can reinterpret Akeeaktashuk’s Mother and Child as a decision to exaggerate the body, exploring the reasons for that action without dismissing the figure as other-than-human, as humour, or as technical exploration.

Malaya Kisa-Knickelbein Northern Beauty Standards (2021) Digital illustration © THE ARTIST

In a similar way, Malaya Kisa-Knickelbein’s practice is centred around visibility. Kisa-Knickelbein’s Northern Beauty Standards (2021) operates as print, social media design, and jewellery, all celebrating embodied beauty in public spaces. There is a relationship between the practice of adorning and caring for a body by making earrings and beautiful clothing to keep it warm; celebrating a body with kakiniit to recognize the achievements, milestones or family; and in the ripples down the side and thick thighs—this relationship is the impetus to love bodies as they come. 

The distribution of work like Kisa-Knickelbein’s that depicts bodies in this way is so important. In the summer of 2018, I made an offhand disparaging remark about my body to Indigenous multimedia artist T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss. Wyss put her hand over her belly and said, “This is the place where love comes from. You have lots of love.” I think about that from time to time, and how pervasive Euro-Western beauty standards are incredibly violent to Indigenous bodies and have affected my self-worth. Ultimately, deeply entrenched fatphobia, which comes with those standards, is part and parcel of settler colonialism. 

Within this article I don’t use the word “fat”—rather chonky, thick, chubby, round, and so on. “Fat” has connotations that revoke the permission all those other words have, both for human and animal bodies. It’s for these reasons that self-love and showing bodies of all sizes is a radical act, in the same way that art made to affirm a community’s sovereignty is radical. 

Levi Qumaluk Basking Walrus (n.d.) Stone 13.3 x 25.4 x 19.1 cm COURTESY FIRST ARTS © THE ARTIST

Displaying animal bodies in public art by Inuit artists in urban spaces serves a comparable function. Take, for example, two murals in Ottawa, ON: Tunnganarniq (2017) in the ByWard Market and an untitled 2019 mural outside of a restaurant called Union Local 613, both created by young Inuit artists—Tunnganarniq by Harry Josephee, Kevin Qimirpik, Janice Qimirpik, Christine Adamie, and the Embassy of Imagination; and the Union Local 613 mural by Claudia Gutierrez and ten Inuit youth from the Inuuqatigiit Centre for Inuit Children, Youth and Families—and facilitated by different organizations. 

The compositions and subjects of both murals are sea creatures—hot-pink seals, whales, and walruses in the ocean, all of which fall into the “chonk” category. With two different organizations involved, the overlap in subject matter and approach likely wasn’t institutionally directed. During interviews about the respective works, the artists demonstrated awareness of the settler gaze, from the prejudices and racism that exist within the city to romantic southern notions of what the North is. In response, they utilized artistic strategies to subvert those misconceptions and to increase visibility to other Inuit in the community. 

Claudia Gutierrez and Inuuqatigiit Centre youth Untitled (2019) Acrylic 304.8 x 3048 cm
315 Somerset Street West, Ottawa, ON PHOTO KATHERINE TAKPANNIE © THE ARTISTS
When asked about the conceptual decisions made for the Union Local 613 mural, Sabrina Taqtu Montague—who led the arts program at Inuuqatigiit—said “we wanted the painting to use bright colours to reflect the vibrancy of Inuit communities.” [2] In part this is done through the sheer scale of both murals and the playfulness of the colour, but it also exists in the visual language of the blubbery sea creatures—a shorthand for abundance, a nod to place, but also what it means to be in relation to one another. At the unveiling of Tunnganarniq, Harry Josephee drew parallels between how hunting a whale brings community together—not only through the hunt itself but also the division of the meat afterwards—and how the mural project had done the same. [3] 

There is a correlation between this unapologetic, unabashed signaling of vibrancy and love to Inuit and a larger public, the current movement towards carving space for self-representation and the body in social media and art spaces, and the chonky sculptures that first drew me in within institutional collections. What began as an exploration of works that spark joy in their charming roundness has slowly become a collection of works that say, “I am here,” and “I see you.”     

Currently residing in the unceded Algonquin territory of Ottawa, Franchesca Hebert-Spence is Anishinaabe from Winnipeg, MB; her grandmother Marion Ida Spence was from Sagkeeng First Nation, on Lake Winnipeg. Her creative practice stems from IshKabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg, Brandon University’s Visual and Aboriginal Arts program. She is a curator, writer and cultural producer and a PhD student in Cultural Mediations (Visual Culture) at Carleton University.

NOTES

1 In conversation with Gwich’in and Inuvialuk storyteller Tom Mcleod, April 3, 2021.

2 CBC News, “New Inuit mural brightens downtown Ottawa,” CBC, Aug 30, 2019, cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/mural-downtown-ottawa-building-1.5265289.

3 Joe Lofaro (@giuseppelo), “Josephee says he hopes the mural will bring people together,” Twitter video, 00:52, July 16, 2017, twitter.com/giuseppelo/status/886619617283772417?s=20&t=tQ1BQeEF9yqEqmz5aGFDmg.

This Feature was originally published as “Chonk” in the Fall 2022 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.