Reflecting on our Northern communities

Art and Wastes in Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), Nunavut Exhibition held its official opening, an event featuring Senator Mary Coyle, Queen’s University Provost Matthew Evans, Queen’s Vice-Principal Research Nancy Ross, and three Inuit artists, Talia Metuq,  Madeleine Qumauqtuq, Oleepika Nashalik, who contributed their work to the show.

For the past four years, PhD candidate Micky Renders (Environmental Studies) has been working with several Inuit artists to create art that engages with waste issues from a Truth and Reconciliation perspective.

“Today we have the honour of welcoming three amazing Inuit women artists from Panniqtuuq on eastern Baffin Island,” Renders said during the opening event.

Provost Evans welcomed Senator Coyle and noted she serves on the Aboriginal Peoples and Foreign Affairs committees, is co-founder and co-chair of Senators for Climate Solutions and is a long-time champion of gender equality and Indigenous Peoples.

Calling the Exhibition remarkable and important, Senator Coyle said she was honoured and a bit overcome to be invited to the event.

“Like most of the people in this room, I am a settler Canadian, and I can’t help but think about the threads of my own life, my work and my experience, and how they collide here tonight. My father and grandfather both graduated from this esteemed university.

The other world we are here to appreciate and learn about is the world of Inuit. We know Inuit means the people, and specifically Inuit of Nunavut, which means quite simply, our land. I have also heard that Panniqtuuq is often referred to as the Switzerland of the Arctic. I had the opportunity to visit the area as a member of the Special Senate Committee on the Arctic which produced a report titled Northern Lights, and the lights referred to the people. It’s a wakeup call for the future of Canada.  

Senator Coyle says Inuit have identified waste as a very serious environment, social, and health threat. “For more than a decade, Dr. Myra Hird and, for the past four years, Micky Renders, have worked with the community to raise awareness around the link between settler colonization and waste in Panniqtuuq and other remote northern communities. This exhibition speaks directly to that issue.”

Dr. Hird (Environmental Studies), Micky’s PhD supervisor, reflected on her 10 years of research in the Arctic and talked about bringing her young family to Panniqtuuq for her first, and subsequent, visits. “I was so lucky to bring my children to Panniqtuuq because it really shaped my experience. I thank all of the kids who immediately took them under their wings. That visit laid the foundation to get me to know the community.

“This Exhibition shows the importance of research, and of building relationships and sustaining relationships. It takes time, it takes graciousness on behalf of hosts. I am grateful to be working on an issue like waste because it is so directly related to climate change. Waste is also an example of ongoing settler colonialism. I am privileged to be able to do this research to contribute to those discussions.”

Art and Wastes in Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), Nunavut runs at the Isabel Bader Centre Monday until Friday, November 3 and the opening times are Monday to Friday, 10 am to 4 pm. After it closes at the Isabel Bader Centre, the Exhibition will travel to the Peterborough Art Gallery and other venues across Canada.