Post on 02-Jul-2015
description
Exploring Inuit artistic voice about Arctic sea ice change:
How does art and artistic process contribute to bridging knowledge systems?
Kaitlyn J Rathwell
PhD Candidate
University of Waterloo, Canada
@kjrathwell
January 8, 2014
Arctic Environmental Change
Photos: ACIA 2004
Arctic Sea Ice Loss
Unprecedented Rapid Non-Linear
Photos: ACIA 2004
Arctic Sea Ice Loss
Unprecedented Rapid Non-Linear
Photos: ACIA 2004
Dark = Heat absorbing
Light = Heat reflecting
Initial Insights…
• Sea ice change and climate change is noted and expressed by Inuit artists
• Art and artistic process can help with bridging knowledge systems (scientific, Inuit)
• Art and artistic processes for processing and sharing embodied knowledge of Arctic environmental change
• I am changed - allowing/ expressing/sharing that change via art performance
1. Interviews with professional artists in Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung (n = 30)
Tim Pitsiulak, Climate Change, 2011, Pencil crayon, 64.8 x 49.5 cm, Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts
“That drawing is a picture of an elder on one side the half of the face and the other half of the face is the ice breaking up. Saying that the elders notice the ice breaks up much earlier and the ice does not form as it use too in the past…..If I made the face looking downward that may mean the end is near, but you are always told to keep your head up”
Tim Pitsiulak
2. Painting Change 2013: Collaborative mural about Arctic social- environmental
change
Participatory Art Workshops
Bridging Elder and Youth knowledge systems
3. Sea Ice Project with Elisapee Ishulutaq
4. Sea Ice Project with ShuvinaiAshoona
Sea Ice Project with Shuvinai Ashoona
Music making as integral to my research process
“Our stories and legends, they can be written into songs so that everyone would hear it and understand.”
Jaco Ishulutaq
Initial Insights…
• Sea ice change and climate change is noted and expressed by Inuit artists
• Art and artistic process can help with bridging knowledge systems (scientific, Inuit)
• Art and artistic processes for processing and sharing embodied knowledge of Arctic environmental change
• I am changed - allowing/ expressing/sharing that change via art performance
Thank You
Kaitlyn J Rathwell Environmental Change Governance Group (ECGG), University of Waterloo, Canada
Kaitlyn.rathwell@uwaterloo.ca(519) 222-7146@kjrathwell
Linked Social-ecological systems
Berkes Colding & Folke 2003
Photos: AMAP 2011
Memories: An Ancient Past, by Abraham Anghik Ruben, Whale skull, Brazilian soapstone, and cedar. (Kipling Gallery/American Indian Museum)
Art
“ the radical qualities of art, that is to say, its indictment of the established reality and its invocation of the beautiful image (schooner Schein) of liberation are grounded precisely in the dimensions where art transcends its social determination and emancipates itself from the given universe of discourse and behavior while preserving its overwhelming presence” (Marcuse
1979, pp. 6).