All-Inuit Curatorial Team for Inuit Art Centre Announced

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L-R: Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, Krista Ulujuk Zawadski, Asinnajaq, and Dr. Heather Igloliorte

The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) has announced the all-Inuit, all-female team of guest curators to create the inaugural exhibitions of the Inuit Art Centre, opening in 2020.

The team will be led by curator and academic Dr. Heather Igloliorte with emerging curators/artists Asinnajaq, Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, and Krista Ulujuk Zawadski. Together they will present exhibitions of contemporary Inuit art that spans a wide range of media, including work produced by emerging, mid-career, and senior artists, and bringing together artists from across the Canadian Arctic and the circumpolar world.

• For the first time ever, a curatorial team will represent all regions of Inuit Nunangat, including the Inuvialuit region of the western Arctic; the territory of Nunavut; Nunavik, Quebec; and Nunatsiavut, Labrador.
• The team will curate the inaugural exhibitions in the 8,000-square-foot Inuit Gallery and adjacent galleries in the Inuit Art Centre, set to be one of the largest exhibition spaces in North America dedicated to Indigenous art.
• The 40,000-square-foot Inuit Art Centre will new feature exhibition, research, and learning spaces, art studios, and a glass-enclosed visible vault, presented in partnership with Inuit.
• The new building, connected to the WAG on all levels, is scheduled to open in 2020, Manitoba’s 150th anniversary.
• By bringing people together to create and share, the Inuit Art Centre is a path to mutual understanding and respect as Canada builds roads to reconciliation.
• With over 13,000 carvings, drawings, prints, textiles, photographs, and new media, and thousands more on loan, the WAG holds in trust the world's largest public collection of contemporary Inuit art. The collection is supported by an unparalleled record of Inuit art exhibitions, publications, and research.
• Established in 1912, the WAG is Canada’s oldest civic art gallery.

Having four Inuit curators representing all of Canada’s Inuit regions in a major exhibition is unprecedented in the country’s history, and we are thrilled to have Heather Igloliorte leading the team. Setting the tone for the WAG’s Inuit Art Centre, this curatorial force will bring into focus Indigenous voices to share their stories nationally and around the globe. Offered here in Winnipeg is a new forum for international cultural dialogue. --Dr. Stephen Borys, Director & CEO, Winnipeg Art Gallery

The inaugural exhibitions of the Inuit Art Centre will be forward-looking, inclusive, collaborative, and dynamic. We hope to create a space for the appreciation and celebration of the North in the South, while maybe even surprising audiences with the depth and breadth of contemporary Inuit art today, from digital media and installation art to mixed-media sculpture, music, and photography. -- Dr. Heather Igloliorte, University Research Chair in Indigenous Art History and Community Engagement and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Concordia University; co-chair, Indigenous Advisory Circle, Winnipeg Art Gallery

Dr. Heather Igloliorte and the curatorial team will lead the inaugural exhibition process from start to finish. They will identify artists, select pieces from the WAG collection and new work by emerging artists, as well as oversee all aspects of the creative process, extending to education and public programming. We can’t wait to see what they come up with! --Andrew Kear, Chief Curator, Winnipeg Art Gallery

Source: Winnipeg Art Gallery