Arctic Arts Summit

A joyous circumpolar celebration in Whitehorse brings the arts into dialogue with politics.

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The drawing’s once-vibrant colours are faded. A hunter in a pale grey parka walks across the snow hauling four bleached yellow ducks over her shoulder, while her companions wear traditional clothes, now muted pinks and reds. Inuk artist Pitseolak Ashoona made the drawing in the late 1960s using felt-tipped pens. After the bright colours lost their luster, it has remained in storage at the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa. 

“When we said we wanted to show this piece, the collection asked if we were sure,” says Leanne Inuarak-Dall, one of four emerging curators of Tether, an exhibition at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse until Aug. 26 organized in conjunction with the Arctic Arts Summit. “But if we didn’t show it just because the colours were faded, it would never be seen.” Showing the different phases of the work as it evolves over time is true and honest, says Inuarak-Dall. “If the artist loved it, we shouldn’t hide it.” 

Tether pushes back against the idea that art – particularly Indigenous art – is static. Intricate, traditional beadwork by Whitehorse-based Angela Code and her mother, Mary, depicts various snowmobiles with contemporary Indigenous slang like Studis, Skoden and Eversick on their hoods, while a traditional Inuit amauti or parka created by Taqralik Partridge, an artist from the Nunavut community of Kuujjuaq, is made from white Tyvek, the plastic wrap used as a vapour barrier in construction. Even displaying traditional Inuit carvings alongside Yukon First Nation work is groundbreaking, says Inuarak-Dall. “You don’t usually see that outside gift shops. There is often this strange separation.” 

The third Arctic Arts Summit – the first in Canada – brought together visual artists, performers, musicians, academics, funders and politicians from across the circumpolar north. “Forgive me for delving straight into politics,” summit founder Maria Utsi said during her opening remarks on June 27. “But this is political.” Utsi, a Norwegian Sámi theatre scholar and cultural worker, as well as deputy chair of the Norwegian Cultural Council, wore a traditional yellow Sámi gákti with a saucer-sized ornamental silver necklace. 

“Arctic perspectives and realities were not a part of Arctic policy making,” she said. “The whole discourse is still, in a way, about resource management in the Arctic. There was never a human perspective, which is very weird when you are a human living in the Arctic.” Northerners live in a reality defined by the south, she said. “As artists, scholars and Indigenous, we just couldn’t accept that any longer.” 

Though the North hosts its fair share of arts festivals, most focus solely on art and culture and not the concomitant politics. Utsi began travelling around the circumpolar world in 2015 with the Norwegian culture minister, championing the idea of an Arctic arts summit as an arena for redefining circumpolar development. “Arts and culture are a manifestation of human existence,” said Utsi. “If you take arts and culture out of Arctic discourse, it’s like we don’t exist.”  

In Whitehorse, the three-day summit featured panels on topics like circumpolar cooperation, intergenerational perspectives on languages, land and art, and how artists can confront Arctic colonialism. There were exhibits, performances, northern films, virtual reality shorts, an arts crawl and a series of collaborations for Theatre in the Bush – a curated series of late-evening performances scattered across a rolling property dappled by spruce and jack pines that overlooks the Yukon River. 

In one small clearing, a faceless person in red spandex lay on the moss in a red helmet sporting caribou antlers. A man at a podium welcomed the audience to Nordting, which translates from Norwegian to “the Northern Assembly.” Everyone was given a cardboard voting card with Nordting’s logo, a griffin-like creature with the head of a caribou holding a sickle. 

The audience at this seemingly mock assembly then voted on propositions like adopting "Make the North Great Again" as a circumpolar slogan, along with more serious questions such as  welcoming northern artists fleeing Russia. Although the event initially seemed to be a humorous take on Arctic issues, it soon became apparent that the assembly was a much more immediate and engaging way to address current affairs. 

“The idea of the northern assembly is to bring power back to the North,” said Nordting creator Amund Sjølie Sveen, who has flown Nordting’s flag outside the UN in New York City, as well as in Iceland, Greenland and even a small Russian border town, where Sveen then had an unplanned meeting with the secret police. “Art is a force that can change culture.” 

The nomadic assembly, which usually lasts a few hours, has been hosted in city council chambers and high schools across the circumpolar region. Along with discussions and votes, it has included singing to help build community. The issues are always relevant to specific locales. During Nordting’s Yukon performance, audience members from the Canada Council for the Arts happily voted for Arctic independence. 

“It opens up a different way of thinking about the questions,” said Sveen. “Plus, the element of humour is very strong. Art in this way can create reality. We are not going to change things with this vote, but it allows you to try out a position and, hopefully, this starts the process.”

The Arctic Arts Summit, much like Nordting, allows circumpolar artists to speak truth to power. “It’s time to change our methods to better serve the communities we are serving – all of them,” Jesse Wente, chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, said at the summit’s closing. In a nod to his prestigious appointment as the first Indigenous person to chair the council, he added: “And don’t let them use you as token cigar-store Indians.” 

Outside, a fire was burning in a traditional Sámi laavu, a canvas teepee-like structure. Sámi youth – many in bright gáktis with thick embroidered belts – rested inside on the spruce-bough floor. Drinking fire-brewed coffee, they were debating what contemporary activism and resistance look like. 

For Norwegian Sámi singer Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen, being a Sámi pop star is inseparable from being an activist. Isaksen, who participated in summit panels and performed, has been asked to pose in her gákti for pictures with reindeer under the northern lights. “These are big contracts, and I turn them down,” she said. “I don’t herd reindeer, so why would I support a stereotype that doesn’t suit me?” 

Isaksen is often hired to sing at big events. Once when she showed up to perform, she was told to return home and change into traditional Sámi clothes. When she refused, the event planners filed a complaint. “Normal Norwegian artists don’t wear this, so why am I expected to,” said Isaksen. “The exotification of Indigenous people is a continuing sign of systemic racism.” Isaksen describes her traditional Sámi clothes as “the most beautiful thing” she owns. “I wear them with pride when I want to,” she said. 

On stage that evening, Isaksen fronted her Sámi pop band ISÁK in black jeans and a designer top with a traditional Sámi sash sewn around it. Under flashing lights, with a pumping synthesizer beat, she took centre stage. “I am now going to sing my grandfather’s joik,” she said, referring to a traditional Sámi song. She beat her heart with her hand. “Through this joik I am bringing him alive,” she said, launching into a wonderfully deep and lilting chant. The crowd surged forward as Isaksen’s voice soared. 

“Art is in the air we breathe,” said Utsi, dancing in the crowd. “You can’t take that out of the conversation, or you dehumanize the whole Arctic.” ■

Tether at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse from June 25 to Aug. 26, 2022 was organized in conjunction with the Arctic Arts Summit, which ran from June 27 to June 29.

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