"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, January 21 to March 12, 2016
Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, installation view
Many Canadians take pride in the Arctic yet few folks ever travel there. Similarly, many art world followers celebrate the Venice Biennale but don’t attend or experience the work. Both situations are problematized by Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15. Combining function and form, this compelling endeavour circulates Canada’s contribution at the 2014 International Architecture Exhibition Biennale di Venezia, a team-based initiative orchestrated by Toronto-based design practice Lateral Office.
Five central themes – art, education, health, housing and recreation – are mapped literally and figuratively via dioramas, lens-based media, architectural models, sculptures and texts. Significant components are created by Nunavut residents, including photographs from 25 Inuit communities. Displayed behind letterbox apertures, these images are positioned ideally for children, but dictate that adults stoop to observe each locale. This strategy of forcing viewers to reposition themselves struck me as indicative of how many do not see, or fully appreciate, Arctic living conditions.
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Photo: Dick Averns
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, installation detail of Nunavut communities (relief sculptures and letterbox photos by community residents)
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Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation (models of Nunavut communities)
Town sites are also depicted as sculpted aerial views, each carved and mounted above the respective photograph. Calling to mind discrete polar caps or ice-pans, this frieze is another metaphor for topics often above or beyond the horizon of southern communities. Such a critique mirrors a major aim of the show: proposing solutions to Nunavut’s indigenous needs.
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Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation
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Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation
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Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation
Nevertheless, a series of soapstone sculptures modelling significant Arctic buildings, created by local artists collaborating with the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, shows predominantly non-indigenous architecture. This is both revealing and indicative of a key question posed in the exhibition online text: “Can architecture, which has largely failed this region both technically and socially, be equally innovative and adaptive?” Certainly, Arctic Adaptations offers many propositions, including better accommodating tourism, and a clarion call to develop lasting functional forms of architecture to meet the needs of local residents.
Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation (soapstone carvings by Inuit artists)
Exquisite and engaging exhibition design is evident throughout, including the ingenious use of tiny overhead data projectors, imparting animated facts that illuminate dioramic topographies. These projections bring home how artists and their facilities are incredibly remote from one another: travel and dissemination of work are monumental challenges.
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Photo: Greg Gerla
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15"
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, detail of installation
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Photo: Dick Averns
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, installation detail of Nunavut art festival demographics (diorama with animated digital projection)
"Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15," organized and curated by Lateral Office, tour presented and coordinated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2014, installation detail of Nunavut art festival demographics (diorama with animated digital projection)
On the upside, this project is evidence of increased Arctic-related artistry. In Calgary, the international Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012 toured to the Glenbow in 2014. In 2015, the Esker showed Kevin Schmidt’s A Sign in the Northwest Passage, and this year The Founders’ Gallery is exhibiting Leslie Reid’s Mapping a Cold War. Such shows are vital for improving understandings of a rapidly changing North, a paradigm with ample room to accommodate more exhibitions by contemporary Inuit artists. And although this iteration of Arctic Adaptations is the final leg of a 2014 to 2016 tour, its legacy as a project of international import will continue to expand the horizon and currency for creative investment in the Arctic.
Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Alberta University of the Arts
1407 14 Ave NW, Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Alberta T2N 4R3
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