This year's festival of the arts explores how culture, and in this case, Inuit culture, is represented as both object and subject in a variety of media. From 'Nanook' to Nunavut: The Art and Politics of Representing Inuit Culture moves from historical and contemporary ethnography to autobiography to hybrid forms of telling stories through creative expression.

The Inuit live in the Arctic regions of eastern Canada and Greenland.1 In Inuktitut, 'Nanook' is a term that means 'polar bear,' and Nunavut means 'our land.' In the context of this arts program, 'Nanook' also refers to the central character in Robert J. Flaherty's well-known film Nanook of the North (1922).

In the early 1970s, aboriginal groups filed land claims with the Canadian federal government that resulted in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act of 1993, and thus, a new territory was created from the Northwest Territories. Nunavut officially joined the federation on April 1, 1999. Its government grants equal representation to all residents and, although not ethnically based, some have called it a de facto aboriginal self-government. Nunavut comprises almost 20% of Canada's nearly ten million square kilometers, and Inuit make up 85% of the territory's population (approximately 27,000 as of 1999). The fastest growing sector is under the age of 25, and as such, it is a society several generations removed from that portrayed in Flaherty's film. Hunting, fishing, and gathering activities continue to provide about 40% of the food supply. Although seal hunting remains a major source of food, the income from seal pelts has collapsed since the European Union and the United States banned the importation of pelts largely due to animal rights movements. Today, printmaking and carving are extremely important economically and are estimated to contribute at least $20 million (CA) each year. Yet the Inuit art with which most are familiar portrays traditional themes: animals, hunting, myths, and shamanism. To what extent are these themes representative of contemporary Inuit culture?

The challenge of representing culture and, in particular, one very much in flux, is at the heart of this festival of the arts. The events that constitute SLUFOTA 2001 attempt to represent Inuit culture and question this very representation. Jose Kusugak, President of Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, will inaugurate the program by sharing his critical perspectives on the evolving nature of Inuit art, history, culture, and politics. In the gallery, exhibitions will include a retrospective of prints by Jessie Oonark of Baker Lake; photographs by San Francisco-based photojournalist Alison Wright; drawings and cartoons by Alootook Ipellie; and Inuit carvings and prints from the University's Permanent Collection and from regional lenders. Marie Routledge, associate curator of Inuit art at the National Gallery of Canada, and Marie Bouchard, curator of Power of Thought: The Prints of Jessie Oonark, will speak about Inuit art, artists, and strategies for understanding Inuit art. David Ruben Piqtoukun will provide a stone carving demonstration and speak about Inuit art from his perspective as a sculptor. Phillip Igloliorti and Alootook Ipellie will present readings from their poetry and prose. Norman Hallendy, who has had a thirty-year relationship with Inuit elders, will supervise the construction on campus of five inuksuit, traditional stone figures, and speak about the spiritual landscape of the Inuit. The Sikumiut Inuit Dancers and Drummers will perform, as will the Aqsarniit Drum Dancers and Throat Singers; their presentations promise to differ with respect to how traditions are represented through choreography and other performance techniques. A variety of films and videos about and by Inuit, from the classic to the contemporary, will be shown, and Peggy Gale, a Toronto-based curator, will provide critical commentary.

During the last several years, most of St. Lawrence University's festival of the arts programs have celebrated the culture and identity of various groups through art, literature, and performance. African Americans were the subject in A Dream Deferred? (1988); Native Americans in Two-Row Wampum (1990); gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in Out Art (1991); Caribbean and Latin Americans in Voices of Struggle, Visions of Hope (1989), Carnival! (1996), and Border Crossings (1997); Tibetan Buddhists in Circle of Enlightenment (1999); and Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans in Reconsidering Vietnam (2000). Nature and the Earth were the focus of Green Art (1994) and Global Warnings (1998). In each of the projects, art objects and artifacts were displayed, and human beings performed. While these endeavors raised important issues regarding identity politics and multiculturalism in a community that is geographically isolated and relatively culturally homogenous, culture and nature were, to a greater or lesser degree, constructed as the 'Other.' On occasion, exhibition displays and performances may have inadvertently objectified and exoticized the subjects of inquiry and promoted over time a form of cultural tourism.

Any extant culture is an evolving, multi-faceted entity. And any attempt to represent culture is, at best, a snapshot, freezing some part of the whole picture in time. But what is not framed can be equally illuminating, since the representation of culture is also a projection that may reveal as much about the representor. In this festival of the arts program, we look critically at the process of representation and ask participants, viewers, and audience members to reflect on the art and politics of exhibiting and performing culture.