Beyond Her Horizons is an all-female polar expedition that navigated the Northwest Passage in 2023 to honour stories of women’s involvement across disciplines in Arctic exploration. Indigenous leader Okalik Eegeesiak, artist Jessica Houston, and polar scientist Noémie Planat sailed aboard the 16-meter sailboat Que Sera, operated by the non-profit organization Fondation Pacifique. They visited Inuit communities in Pond Inlet, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, Tuktoyaktuk, and Nome. During the journey, Planat measured the salinity and temperature of the coastal Alaskan current while Eegeesiak and Houston recorded Inuit women sharing their knowledge of the land, lighting the qulliq (a traditional oil lamp) and sewing garments — skills that were essential in helping early male explorers during first contact. They also gathered stories from women across the fields of underwater archaeology, citizen science, and research. The resulting film presents these women’s perspectives on the Arctic regions accompanied by footage of the sky, the ocean, and their meeting place — the horizon.
The journey is sponsored by The Trebek Initiative Explorer Program (in partnership with The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and National Geographic), The Canada Council for the Arts, Parks Canada, and NVision Insight Group. Il Torchio donated handbound sketchbooks. We are sailed with Fondation Pacifique.
ᐅᖓᑖᓄᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᖓᓄᑦ” ᐱᓕᕆᐊᒃᓴᖅ
ᐅᖓᑖᓄᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᖓᓄᑦ: ᐊᕐᓇᐃᓐᓇᐃᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᑉ ᐊᓯᔾᔨᖅᐸᓪᓕᐊᓂᖓᓄᑦ ᑐᕌᒐᖃᖅᑐᑦ ᑎᑎᕋᕈᒪᓪᓗᑎᒃ ᑕᕐᕆᔭᒃᓴᓕᐅᒐᓚᓗᑎᓪᓗ ᐅᐱᒋᔭᐅᓗᑎᒃ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᕆᔭᐅᔪᓂᑦ ᐃᓄᓐᓂᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᓕᖅᑯᓯᖃᑎᒋᖏᑕᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ ᐊᐅᓚᖃᑎᖃᕐᓗᑎᒃ. ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᒃᑯᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓗᑎᒃ ᐃᒪᕕᒻᒥ, ᐱᓕᕆᖃᑎᒌᑦᑐᑦ ᓂᐅᕐᕈᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓄᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓂᒃ ᑲᑎᖅᓱᐃᒋᐊᖅᑐᕐᓗᑎᒃ ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᐊᕐᓇᐃᑦ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᓄᓇᒥ, ᓂᕐᔪᑎᓂᒃ, ᖁᓪᓕᖅ, ᐊᓐᓄᕌᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᒥᖅᓱᕐᓂᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑲᔪᓯᑎᓯᓯᒪᔭᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᓄᓇᓕᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑎᑭᑕᐅᕙᓪᓕᐊᖃᑦᑕᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒋᑦ ᓯᕗᓕᖏᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᕆᔭᐅᕙᑦᑐᒥᓂᕐᓂᒃ. ᐱᓕᕆᖃᑎᒌᑦ ᐊᐱᖅᓱᖃᑦᑕᓛᕐᒥᔪᑦ ᖃᐅᔨᓴᖅᑎᕐᔪᐊᖑᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ, ᑎᑎᕋᖅᑎᓂᒃ, ᐃᓕᓴᐃᔨᓂᒃ, ᑭᒡᒐᖅᑎᐅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ, ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓕᐅᖅᑎᐅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᑕᐃᒃᓱᒪᓂᑦ ᐅᓪᓗᒥᒧᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᕕᒋᔭᖏᓐᓂᑦ.
ᐅᒥᐊᖅᑐᓚᐅᖏᓐᓂᖏᓐᓂᒃ, ᐱᓕᕆᖃᑎᒌᑦ ᐊᕐᓇᐃᑦ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖃᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ ᖃᐅᔨᒐᓱᐊᕈᑎᒋᔭᕐᒥᓂᒃ, ᖃᐅᔨᓴᖅᑎᑦ, ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓕᐅᖅᑎᑦ, ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᖅᑐᓕᕆᔨᑦ, ᑭᒡᒐᖅᑐᐃᔨᑦ, ᐊᑐᖅᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔨᑦ ᐃᖅᑲᐃᑎᑦᓯᒐᓱᐊᕐᓗᑎᒃ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᖏᓐᓂᒃ ᐱᓕᕆᐊᖑᓯᒪᔪᓂᓪᓗ.
ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓗᑎᒃ, ᐊᔾᔨᙳᐊᓂᒃ, ᐊᐅᓚᔫᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᖃᐅᓯᒃᑯᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓂᒃ ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ, ᖃᓪᓗᓈᑎᑐᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᐃᕖᑎᑐᑦ (ᑲᑎᖅᓱᖅᑕᐅᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ ᓯᕗᖓᒍᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓯᓯᒪᓕᖅᑎᓪᓗᒋᑦ) ᑕᑯᔭᒃᓴᐅᖃᑦᑕᕐᓂᐊᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐅᑭᐅᑦ ᖄᖏᖅᑐᓂᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᖑᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᒥᓃᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓴᕈᒥᓇᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᐊᕐᓇᓂᒃ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᒥᓂᕐᓂᒃ.
ᐅᖓᑖᓄᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᖓᓄᑦ ᐱᓕᕆᔪᑦ: ᑐᓴᕈᒪᔪᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓂᒃ ᓯᕗᓕᖏᓐᓃᖓᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᐊᕐᓇᐃᑦ (ᐃᓅᔪᓂᒃ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᑐᓴᐅᒪᔭᐅᔪᓂᒃ) ᓴᓇᓯᒪᔪᓂᑦ ᐊᓐᓄᕌᓂᒃ ᐊᓐᓇᐅᒪᑎᑦᓯᓯᒪᔪᓂᒃ, ᒪᓕᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᒥᓂᐅᓂᖏᑦ ᓂᕐᔪᑎᑕᖃᖅᑐᒧᑦ, ᖃᐅᔨᓯᒪᔪᑦ ᐊᖅᑯᑎᐅᕙᑦᑐᒥᓂᕐᓂᒃ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓯᕗᓪᓖᑦ ᑎᑭᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᒥᓃᑦ ᑕᕆᐅᑉ ᐊᑭᓂᒥᐅᑦ ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᒃᑯᑦ. ᐊᒥᓱᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓕᐊᖑᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᒥᓃᑦ ᑕᑯᔭᐅᒍᓐᓇᓛᖅᑐᑦ ᑭᒃᑯᑐᐃᓐᓇᕐᓄᑦ ᓯᕗᓪᓕᖅᐹᖑᓂᐊᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᑕᒪᓐᓇ, ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕈᑎᒃᓴᓕᐅᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ, ᖃᕆᓴᐅᔭᒃᑯᑦ ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᕈᑎ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᓇᓕᓐᓂ ᖃᓄᐃᓕᐅᖅᑎᑦᓯᒃᑯᑦ.
ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓂᕆᓂᐊᖅᑕᕗᑦ ᑮᓇᐅᔭᖃᖅᑎᑕᐅᔪᑦ ᐅᑯᓇᖓᑦ: ᑮᓇᐅᔭᖃᖅᑎᑦᓯᔪᑦ ᐅᓂᒃᑳᓕᐊᓂᒃ, ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᖅᑐᓕᕆᔨᓂᕐᒧᑦ ᐊᓯᖏᓐᓂᓪᓗ ᓴᐳᔾᔨᒐᓱᐊᖅᑐᓂᒃ ᑲᓇᑕᒥᐅᑦ ᓄᓇᖃᖅᑳᖅᓯᒪᔪᓄᓪᓗ ᓄᓇᖏᓐᓂᒃ, ᐃᒪᖏᓐᓂᒃ, ᑲᑐᔾᔨᖃᑎᖃᖅᑐᑎᒃ ᑲᓇᑕᒥ ᓯᓚᓕᕆᓂᕐᒧᑦ ᑲᑎᒪᔨᖏᑦ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᓄᓇᓕᕆᓂᕐᒧᑦ. ᑲᓇᑕᒥ ᑲᑎᒪᔨᑦ ᓴᓇᔨᐅᖃᑦᑕᖅᑐᓄᑦ. ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᓕᕆᔨᒃᑯᑦ ᑲᒪᔨᐅᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ.
ᐅᖓᑖᓄᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᖓᑕ ᐱᓕᕆᔪᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓯᒋᐊᕐᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ ᒥᑦᑎᒪᑕᓕᒻᒥᑦ, ᓄᖅᑲᑲᐃᓐᓇᖅᑕᖅᑯᑦ ᐃᖃᓗᑦᑑᓯᐊᒥ, ᑐᖅᑑᔭᖅᑐᒥ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᓱᓕᕝᕕᖃᑦᑕᖅᑯᑦ ᓅᒻ.
(photo courtesy ©Fondation Pacifique, Eric-Stitzel)
Miriam Aglukkaq, Rhoda Arnakallak, Cathy Converse, Bernadette Dean, Okalik Eegeesiak, Mariah Erkloo, Isabelle Gapp, Barbora Halašková, Jessica Houston, Elisapie Inuarak, Joanna Kafarowski, Chassidy Kasook, Julia Kasook, Angeline Kiyoapik, Trisha Killiktee, Rhoda Koonoo, Genevieve LeMoine, Rebecca Luce-Kapler, Mary Muckpa, Aimie Néron, Abbie Ootova, Eavan O’Dochartaigh, Aaju Peter, Noémie Planat, Sunniva Sorby, Martha Tikivik, Julianne Yip, and Katherine Wilson.
Nilaulaaq Miriam Aglukkaq lives in Gjoa Haven. She administered medicines by dog team to seasonal camps, also serving as a midwife and language documenter. Revered for her leadership, storytelling, and traditional singing, she advises on Inuit wisdom. Her family inspires her to preserve language and culture passionately.
Rhoda Arnakallak lives in Pond Inlet. She is a masterful seamstress and elder, and teaches others how to carry on Inuit traditional skills. She remembers nomadic ways of life and falling asleep in a sealskin tent, listening to her grandmother’s stories.
Cathy Converse, a celebrated author for over four decades, has penned numerous bestsellers, articles, and academic works. Her notable biography "Against the Current: The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron" received prestigious recognition. Converse's academic contributions include shaping women's studies at Camosun College, earning her a place in Canadian Who's Who.
Bernadette Dean, from Rankin Inlet, is Siusarnaq's great-granddaughter. She's deeply connected to her Inuit heritage, engaging in hunting, fishing, and cultural activities. Bernadette has collaborated on projects preserving Inuktitut language and culture, advising on museum exhibits and documentaries, and co-directing "Inuit Piqutingit" with Zacharias Kunuk.
Okalik Eegeesiak, consultant at NVision Insight Group Inc., and former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, champions Inuit rights. With a wealth of experience representing Inuit interests across diverse platforms, she communicates Inuit aspirations globally, from governmental to grassroots levels.
Mariah Erkloo, from Pond Inlet, is a sociology student at University of British Columbia. Mariah represents her community through her work as a cultural ambassador with Oxen Expeditions.
Dr. Isabelle Gapp, Interdisciplinary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Environment and Biodiversity, specializes in landscape painting, environmental history, and climate change in the Circumpolar North. Her book "A Circumpolar Landscape: Art and Environment in Scandinavia and North America, 1890-1930" from Lund Humphries was published in April 2024.
Dr. Barbora Halašková is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. She is also a Director of the ARCTOS research center and a Vice-Chair of the Social & Human Working Group of the IASC. Her research interests focus on geopolitics in the Arctic, securitization theory, and NATO-Russia relations.
Jessica Houston, a multidisciplinary artist, explores climate justice across the polar regions through oral narratives, photography, painting, and video. Collaborating with scientists and poets, she uncovers geographies of resistance in the Arctic, Iceland, and Antarctica. Funded by The Canada Council for the Arts, her works are in the collections of MMFA and BAnQ in Montréal; MNBAQ in Québec; and the Canada Council Art Bank.
Elisapie Inuarak is an Inuk who was born in an outpost camp past Clyde River. She worked translating until becoming an elder counselor at schools until she retired. Elisapie is known to be a business woman involved in tourism. She has many other achievements and is actively engaged with her community.
Dr. Joanna Kafarowski is a geographer and author of The Polar Adventures of a Rich American Dame: A Life of Louise Arner Boyd and editor of Gender, Culture and Northern Fisheries. She spent over a decade working with Inuit women in the Canadian Arctic on gender and natural resource issues. She is currently working on a book about women, exploration and climate change in Greenland.
Chassidy Kasook is a primary school student at Mangilaluk School in Tuktoyaktuk where she lives with her family. She is the grand-daughter of Julia Kassok. She loves Arctic sports and is learning traditional skills from her grandmother.
Julia Kasook is a resident of Tuktoyaktuk where she lives with her family. She is the grandmother of Chassidy Kassok. She went to residential school when she was young and she is now a respected elder in her community.
Angeline Kiyoapik is from Pond Inlet, Nunavut. She likes to square dance. During summer times she performs for the cruise ships, sometimes twice a day, which she finds to be very fun. She performs with Trisha for the return of the sun, an eagerly awaited event.
Trisha Killiktee lives in Pond inlet Nunavut. She likes to throat sing, sometimes she goes out of town to learn about the Inuit culture or to perform. She sings with Angeline Kiyoapik.
Rhoda Koonoo was born near Pond Inlet at Button Point. Her family relocated to Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Island in 1951. For over 40 years, she's been active in the Women’s Exallery Group, renowned for assisting hunters and providing weather forecasts, among other achievements.
Genevieve LeMoine is a noted archaeologist, author and curator at The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center, Bowdoin College. Genevieve co-authored Peary's Arctic Quest: Untold Stories from Robert E. Peary’s North Pole Expeditions.
Rebecca Luce-Kapler is Dean of Education, Queen’s University, a professor, and a writer. She is the winner of the Michener Medal in Fine Arts for writing and has published more than 50 poems and two books of poetry, most recently, The Negation of Chronology: Imagining Geraldine Moodie.
Mary Muckpa is a retired educator with over 20 years of teaching experience. Renowned for her community involvements and achievements, she's particularly known for her sewing expertise and invaluable advice. Mary is also one of Pond Inlet's last surviving residents who spent her early years entirely in an outpost camp until late adolescence.
Aimie Néron is an underwater archeologist working with Parks Canada excavating the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, Franklin’s ships that were lost in 1845. She is also a commercial diver.
Abbie Ootova is a resident of Pond Inlet, Nunavut. Abbie is a cultural performer and she sings the national Canadian anthem in Inuktitut for opening ceremonies. She is versed in the singing traditions of her Inuit culture.
Eavan O’Dochartaigh, Honorary Research Lecturer at the University of Galway, holds a PhD in English from the same institution. Previously a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at Umeå University, her current project, "Exploring the Arctic Archive," is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council. Her monograph, "Visual Culture and Arctic Voyages," was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.
Aaju Peter is an Inuk lawyer, activist, and sealskin clothing designer, Aaju is featured in the documentary Twice Colonized. In 2012, she received the Order of Canada. Aaju advocates for Inuit rights to seal and sealskin products as well as the Inuit right to be involved in issues related to Arctic waters. She lives in Iqaluit.
Noemie Planat, a PhD Candidate at McGill University, investigates the impact of Pacific Waters entering the Arctic via the Bering Strait. These waters, branching out differently, transport heat and fresher water, potentially influencing sea-ice cover in the Beaufort Sea. Noémie conducts hydrographic measurements along this route, from Cambridge Bay to the Beaufort Sea.
Sunniva Sorby skied to the South Pole in 1993 with the first all-female team and overwintered in the Arctic for 29 months in 2021 with Hilde Falun Strom. With over 25 years in polar regions, she advocates for Arctic and Antarctic protection through storytelling, citizen science, and youth engagement. Sorby presented at UNCop26 on polar education's role in understanding climate change and addressed the United Nations on community courage in solving the climate crisis.
Martha Tikivik, a longtime resident of Iqaluit, is a respected figure in her community. She recalls sailing with her family to teach other Inuit how to sail. Martha believes in the spiritual connection between the living and their ancestors, often sharing her wisdom at special events by lighting her qulliq.
Julianne Yip, a sociocultural anthropologist trained at McGill University, delves into the intersections of sea ice, climate change, zoonotic diseases, and synthetic biology. Her fieldwork spans from Utqiavik, Alaska, studying "rotten ice," to bioengineering labs. Engaging in multimodal scholarship, she contributes to arts/science collaborations and serves as a Policy Analyst at the Meteorological Service of Canada.
Dr. Katherine Wilson is the Director of Knowledge Co-production at SmartICE Inc. Since 2015 she has been mentoring and co-developing training for Inuit from 9 communities across Inuit Nunangat to produce ice safety products for their communities, using their knowledge and language.
In total, the team sailed from Pond Inlet to Nome, with stops in Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, and Tuktoyaktuk.
ᐅᖓᑖᓄᑦ ᓯᓚᕐᔪᐊᖓᑕ ᐱᓕᕆᔪᑦ ᐃᖏᕐᕋᓯᒋᐊᕐᓂᐊᖅᑐᑦ ᒥᑦᑎᒪᑕᓕᒻᒥᑦ, ᓄᖅᑲᑲᐃᓐᓇᖅᑕᖅᑯᑦ ᐃᖃᓗᑦᑑᓯᐊᒥ, ᑐᖅᑑᔭᖅᑐᒥ ᐊᒻᒪᓗ ᐃᓱᓕᕝᕕᖃᑦᑕᖅᑯᑦ ᓅᒻ.
(This 1633 map by Gerhard Mercator depicted the legend of the North Pole as a rock encircled by flowing waters, from which four rivers emerged and flowed between four islands. Image courtesy Osher Map Library)
Que Sera, operated by the non-profit organization Fondation Pacifique, is a 16-meter, all-aluminum sailboat built by Metalu in 1984. Equipped for the far north, the boat has visited most of the world's oceans with its various owners.
En route, Noemie measured the salinity and temperature of the ocean as a function of depth; Okalik and Jessica visited women in hamlets to listen to stories related to Inuit women’s knowledge of their land, animals, qulliq, sewing, and their contributions to the success of their communities and to early explorers during first contact.
Before and after the voyage they interviewed women across disciplines involved in Arctic exploration. These intergenerational and cross-disciplinary stories will be disseminated back into Northern and Southern communities.
The materials gathered (audio, video and photographs) will be used for an exhibition of the project, which both uses and subverts the visual culture of Arctic expeditions to communicate an alternative exploration celebrating the beauty of the north and bearing witness to the myriad of interventions from Frobisher onward. These include images of sites related to exploration legacies and the documentation of ephemeral gestures carried out en route, such as cutting a hole into a flag that opens to the sky.
The journey video and audio foreground women’s stories, the sky, the ocean, and their meeting place—the horizon. The audio component enlivens the landscapes, providing viewers points of access to people’s lived experiences in the Arctic. This offers ways to reimagining Arctic exploration narratives and our relationship to these complex, dynamic, and fragile spaces.
(photo ©Jessica Houston)
Before, during and after the voyage, Eegeesiak and Houston spoke with women across disciplines currently involved in polar work, drawing from the sciences, humanities, philosophy and history. They researched intrepid, historic Inuk figures such as Shoofly Comer, who aided Captain Comer with her sewing and hunting skills and translator and guide Tookoolito, who accompanied explorer Charles Hall in the 19th century and saved his crew from death while stranded for six months on an ice flow.
Following the voyage, a photographic and video expedition journal recounting the team’s tales will be available to Southern and Northern viewers through a series of exhibitions and curricular materials in community centers and schools in Northern hamlets and throughout Canada. These will include footage from the expedition, and the sharing of oral histories from women across Canada in Inuktut, English, and French. The images and audio will foreground women’s stories, the sky, the ocean, and their meeting place—the horizon. (photo @JessicaHouston)
Over the Edge of the World locates itself amid the entangled legacies of polar-expedition narratives. The poles have largely been seen as a frontier to conquer, a sublime tabula rasa, or a barren, ahistorical land. Over the Edge of the World uses a variety of strategies and materials to challenge stories that glorify the military, masculinity, and individual heroism. The work upends the colonial and romantic fantasies that cling to these landscapes in order to tell other (hi)stories—those of ice, whales, and people who could not or would not leave any traces. It also celebrates the agency of ice, and people who interact with place with respect and collaboration.
collage
10 x 14”
The horizon felt photographs use color to create new cartographies of the polar regions. Using the horizon and colors from the landscape as points of reference, I placed different colored felt in front of my lens while photographing the north and south poles. Abandoned outposts, remote scientific stations, and retreating glaciers speak to the life of places and the storied matter that shapes them. These photographs take stock of the embedded histories of the poles and their entanglement of colonialism, capitalism and environmental injustice, while opening up a space for rethinking the ‘natural’.
The colors taken from seaweed, moss, berries, ships, grave stones, seals, flags—all interrupt notions of the uninhabited white polar space. The convergences between human and beyond-human species and spaces reveal that we are materially embedded in our environment, just as much as it is within us. The colored felt interrupts the visual language—while simultaneously maintaining a long view. We are implicit in this juxtaposition of viewpoints, as our capacity to think beyond ourselves is central to our collaborative agency in imagining alternative possibilities.
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
to listen to audio, please visit: The Call of Things
The Call of Things uses ‘talking objects’ to address colonialism, geopolitics and the environmental distress of the North and South Poles. This Posthuman assemblage creates a political ecology of things, where viewers can listen to the embodied matter that shapes polar regions. The oral narratives and field recordings related to each artifact reveal the range of contributors across disciplines, including ecologists, Indigenous leaders, sea-ice, philosophers, poets, whales, and academics. Knowledge is produced across a human and more-than-human spectrum—it is situated and embedded, drawing upon convergences of multiple perspectives.
Live Canary linked to the voice of Eileen Crist, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech. Author of many books including Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth and Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization.
Art Mûr Gallery, Montreal
and the voice of Ari Friedlaender, Ecologist, University of California Santa Cruz. Member of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program at Palmer Station, Antarctica, whose aim is to better understand the ecological roles of cetaceans in a rapidly changing climate.
and the voice of Okalik Eegeesiak, Former Chair of Inuit Circumpolar Council, board member of Arctic Children and Youth Foundation, President of the regional Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA), representing approximately 14,000 Inuit across 13 communities of the Qikiqtani Region of Nunavut.
and the voice of Gibbie Fraser, Whaler from the Shetland Islands, worked on a whaling ship in Antarctica from 1958-1963; Chairman of Shetland ex-Whalers Association.
and the sounds of glaciers melting, courtesy of Dr. Grant Deane, Research Oceanographer, University of San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
and the sounds of whales singing, courtesy of ©Thomas R. Kieckhefer, and DOSITS — Discovery of Sound in the Sea, University of Rhode Island and Inner Space Center.
and the voice of Julianne Yip, Non-Anthropocentric Anthropologist, Berggruen Fellow at Boston University. Her research interests include the study of scientists who study sea ice; and how (sea) ice gives rise to its own order of things.
and the voice of Kitty Komangapik, resident of Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, High Canadian Arctic.
and the voice of Anne Michaels, Poet and Author. Recipient of Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas, the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her novel, Fugitive Pieces, was adapted as a feature film.
and the voice of Lisa Speer, Marine Scientist, Director of Oceans Program at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Oversees NRDC’s effort to preserve and protect the world’s oceans. Testified before Congress and the United Nations on a variety of high-seas and Arctic-management issues.
Using the horizon and the colors of the landscape as points of reference, I placed pieces of colored felt in front of my lens while taking photographs throughout my journey sailing the Northwest Passage. The felt filters and flattens part of the landscape — while simultaneously maintaining a long view. It gives tactility, joining touch with sight. Thus, the works are made with much of the landscape ‘missing’. With this gesture of intentional withholding, the image refuses completion, and becomes a site of resistance.
Abandoned outposts, remote scientific stations, and retreating glaciers speak to how economic, political and social relationships shape a space. The horizon is a viewpoint always beyond reach; it describes limits of perception. As polar space — once considered the limit of empire and human experience — becomes more encroached upon with open waters, the fight for claims to resources intensifies. These photographs refuse to 'capture' the land. Instead, they open the picture up for reconstruction in the mind of the viewer.
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
Archival Pigmented Print, 22" x 33" (56 x 84 cm)
To learn more, please visit: Letter to the Future
Letter to the Future is a 1,000-year collaboration with ice to provoke consideration of our present and the possibilities for our future.
No one from the present has seen the letters, except the authors themselves. Contributors include poet Anne Michaels, former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Okalik Eegeesiak, theoretical physicist and author Carlo Rovelli, composer Arvo Pärt, and posthuman philosopher Rosi Braidotti.
The handwritten letters of poets, Indigenous leaders, artists, scientists, and environmental activists have been buried in the Dronning Maud Land ice sheet by Alain Hubert, founder of The International Polar Institute and operator at The Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Station—the world’s first zero-emission scientific station. According to in-situ measurements of velocity by Hubert and colleagues, the container will emerge in roughly 1,000 years after being carried by the ice to the sea.
If, as philosopher Rosi Braidotti suggests, the present is both a record of what we are ceasing to be and what we are in the process of becoming, Letter to the Future is a proposal to activate a just awareness of life across a spectrum, in convergence with ice and time. The simultaneous pull between present and future is at the root of the project — what we think and do now has everything to do with who we are becoming. As seen from the future, this work is a retroactive, recuperative act of possibility.
Withholding the contents from the present prompts us to imagine what is written, and who, if anyone, will read the letters. We might wonder what we would write. Using the real and imaginary implications of Antarctica as both ‘the end of the earth’ and the very idea of future, this collaborative piece asks us to imagine with renewed sensitivity our time and place in the history of our planet.
www.lettertothefuture.net
I would like to thank: the contributors; Alain Hubert and Nighat Amin at the International Polar Foundation; Laurielle Penny at Worldwide Quest; One Ocean; Doug Schillinger and RBR Ltd.; Bruno Tremblay at McGill University and The Canada Council for the Arts.
I also acknowledge the help of the following people and institutions: Charles Brunette, McGill University; Noémie Chevalier and Art Mûr Gallery; ECM; Hendrik Huwald, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne; Alain Marchand; Nadine Medawar; June Park; Penguin Random House; Polity Press; Michel Seguin, Atelier Seguin; SOCAN; Maryse Tremblay.
Archival Pigmented Print, 48 x 72” (71 x 107 cms)
The time capsule is a Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) container, an oceanographic instrument typically used to measure salinity/temperature and depth weighing 1 kg and measuring 40 cm x 6.4 cm. The capsule is designed to sustain a hydrostatic water pressure of 740 m and can float with the letters encapsulated within. When the CTD reaches the ocean, it will become an ocean drifter. Letters to the Future, Antarctica, 2018 and the contributors’ names have been engraved on the capsule. The capsule was donated by RBR Ltd.
Archival Digital Print 21.6 x 16“
Alain Hubert, founder of The International Polar Foundation, deployed the time capsule in February 8, 2019, in the Dronning Maud Land region where The Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Station, the world’s first zero-emission scientific station, is located. (Photo courtesy Alain Hubert).
Archival Digital Print
24 x 36“ (61 x 92 cms)
Author of The Posthuman; Philosopher and Distinguished University Professor, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council
Poet and Author of several books including Fugitive Pieces
Composer
Theoretical Physicist and author of several books including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time
Primary school student at École Laurier who loves our planet earth
Primary school student at École Laurier who loves animals
As the poles become more accessible, regions that used to be poles apart are conflated by the geopolitical and capitalist strategies of extractivism and the fossil fuel industry. The ideologies inherited by a colonial past are evident in abandoned whaling stations, outposts and in the current climate crisis. These landscapes juxtapose, invert, and combine fragments of my photographs taken in both poles. In doing so, they both take stock of histories of human domination on species and spaces, and they offer new ideas of sovereignty – that of wind, water, and air.
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print
24 x 36”
Archival Pigmented Print, 24 x 36”
These collages reconfigure images of the North and South poles, using an underlying fractal geometry to shift scales, juxtapose historical and contemporary issues and interrupt narratives with color gaps. Ideas of conquest, scouring the ends of the earth for resources, and the question of basic needs for humanity are at the fore of these polar works. Their making involves an activity of cutting together/apart images and ideas in the entanglement of matter and meaning. What histories are foregrounded? Who is missing, displaced or replaced? What are the material consequences of human and beyond human relationships?
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
Collage, 11 x 14” (28 cm x 35 cm)
When I was in Baffin Island, a resident told me about the iron ore mine at Mary River, saying, “This mountain will soon be gone.” This mine is one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world and climate change is the precondition for the extraction of its resources. Using paintings, prints and a sound sculpture, This Mountain invites viewers to engage with the slow build-up of a form over time, and its sudden erasure.
The sound sculpture turns an iron ore stone into a ‘speaker’ projecting recordings of community members from Pond Inlet, Baffin Island describing the mine site and their changing lands. It was made in collaboration with Aileen Hope, Chris Idlaut, Mary Ipeelie, Ruby Katsak, Kitty Komangapik, Deanna and Elijah Panipakoocho.
The paintings are made with actions based on natural forces, alluding to humans as a geophysical force, offering a meditation on how something—the earth, a mountain—is formed through repeated actions over time.
The chine-collé prints fuse my photographs of Baffin Island with colored paper. Information is removed and replaced, interrupting the visual grammar.
Made in Collaboration with: Aileen Hope, Chris Idlaut, Mary Ipeelie, Ruby Katsak, Kitty Komangapik, Deanna Panipakoocho and Elijah Panipakoocho
Made in Collaboration with: Aileen Hope, Chris Idlaut, Mary Ipeelie, Ruby Katsak, Kitty Komangapik, Deanna Panipakoocho and Elijah Panipakoocho
Iron Ore, Mirror, Audio Recordings from members of Baffin Island Community
39” high x 11.5 deep x 15 wide (99 x 29 x 38 cm)
Oil and Piercing Action on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Gouging Action on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Carving Action on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and carving on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Hammering on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Scraping on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Fire on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Fire on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Ax on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Oil and Pressure on Wood, 20 x 20” (51 x 51 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Chine-Collé Print, 21 x 30" (53 x 76 cms)
Made in collaboration with: Uluriak and Valerie Amarualik, Zipporah Aronsen, Marty Bergmann, Eddy Carmack, Brenda Eckalook, Simon Idlout, Martha Kalluk, Ludy Pudluck, Ryan Paquette, and Cathy Rose.
Qausuittuq literally means, “place with no dawn” in Inuktitut.This is a 24-hour time-lapse video made from still shots taken with two cameras simultaneously of a view onto a landscape in the Canadian High Arctic. The photographs were taken exactly at the moment when the sun stops setting below the horizon, flooding the land with 24 hours of daylight.
The double images both extend the horizon and refer to the tumultuous political history of Resolute Bay, where people were deported from Northern Quebec and Baffin Island to assert Canadian sovereignty during the Cold War. People in the village of Qausuittuq describe their experience of moving from dark to 24-hour daylight; scientists working in the region also share their observations. These multiple perspectives provide the sound for the video, along with the voices of two sisters, Uluriak and Valerie Amarualik, throat singing. These stories of the community embody the specificity of the place where human and more than human are inextricably linked.
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, Resolute Bay, Canadian High Arctic, 12 minutes
Using a Munsell Soil Color Chart*, a photograph taken in the Canadian Arctic, and paintings, The Color of Soil points to our extractive relationship with the earth. It also offers possibilities for embodied knowledge of place, as we allow ourselves to be touched by what can be traced, remembered and imagined.
In his book Pandora’s Hope, philosopher Bruno Latour describes the process of the geologist who uses the Munsell Color Chart to standardize the specimens taken from the field. The soil is collected from its site, matched to a number in the chart, and ultimately ‘flattened’ as data. In its removal from its context, the soil is stripped of its textures, smells, inhabitants and stories.
The photograph Living Memory was taken at Fort Ross, an uninhabited former trading post in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. Founded in 1937, it was the last trading post to be established by the Hudson’s Bay Company and it was closed due to severe ice conditions that rendered it uneconomical. The manager, his wife, and the clerk were finally evacuated by air in 1943.
Echoing the colors in the chart and in the photograph, the soil paintings read as pure monochromes from afar, but upon closer inspection, one discovers embedded imagery that refer to the history of Fort Ross, and the Canadian North. The paintings range from figurative to purely abstract, telling the stories of the colonial interventions on the land, people and animals. The work reveals inequities, displacements and extractions across and beyond the human spectrum as we take things out of context in the service of globalization.
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9” each
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Oil on Wood Panel
9 x 9”
Archival Digital Print
22 x 33”
Solarhringur means the circle of the sun, or 24 hours, in Icelandic. This 24-hour-time-lapse video is made from still shots taken of a view onto a fjord on the northern tip of Iceland recalls a time not measured by the clock, but by natural systems.
24-hour time-lapse photography to HD video, 12 minutes
Skagaströnd, Iceland
Light, fleshy pink.
ROSA DI PELLE.
Traffic-light green.
VERDE COME UN SEMAFORO.
Dark blue like my son’s eyes.
BLU SCURO COME GLI OCCHI DE MIO FIGLIO.
This site-specific intervention in Puglia, Italy uses colors described to me from memory by local residents to transform the Castle of Corigliano. The castle’s original purpose, which was to make residents feel the weight of the lord’s power, is subverted as it became filled with the personal stories and memories of the residents of Corigliano.
Using Albany Airport’s window architecture, this installation in the ticketing counter at the airport uses natural colored light to invite travelers to see the sky through a new lens. The work changes with the seasons, the weather and the time of day. The installation occurs in the colored spectrum on the clerestory windows and the blue colors of the sky in the windows above.
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
Natural Light & Colored Vinyls
Dimensions Variable
Albany Airport Installation, Albany, NY
