Museum of Contemporary Circumpolar Art (MCCA)

Interview by Goretti Kakuktinniq, 2013 My wall hangings are shaped as stretched sealskin and decorated with designs of Arctic animals such as loons, ptarmigans, walrus, seals, orca whales, beluga whales, narwhals – all representing things I loved as a child, things I loved seeing and hearing. Animals from the beauty of our land, and on which we depended. That is the way we lived; we had no products bought at the stores at that time. When I use animals dressed in traditional clothing, I mean to show that we humans are as beautiful as the animals are. I often use igluit in my art. The iglu was very important in my youth. It was so hard living in the fall; we lived in tents and it was cold and uncomfortable. When we finally had the right snow to build an iglu, we were happy. When my father finished building an iglu and we moved into the snow house, it was beautiful, cozy and so peaceful. Also, I often do wall hangings with a child fishing with father. This is inspired by memories of when I sed to go fishing with my father as a child. To this day, I still enjoy fishing on the ice during spring and fall. As a young girl I adopted a bear cub. I remember that I used to follow my father when he went fishing with the bear cub waking beside me. Once, when he was fishing at the mouth of a river, a seal bit his fishhook. We waited and waited for the seal but did not get it. I remember those times, when I put a seal into my wall hangings. There was a white man who came to Rankin and spent time with us. When he returned home, he sent us a drawing of a family group of sea mammals and wrote that it was our family. I started sewing outfits on the animals as appliqué, reminders of the “tutaliit” mermaids.”