ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life, opens November 8, 2024

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents

ᐅᒻ ᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) invites you to experience a breathtaking display of Inuit art as of November 8. Conceived by Inuk artist and curator asinnajaq, this new presentation of the Museum’s Inuit art collection prompts us to meditate on the rhythms of life particular to the circumpolar territories known together as Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands).

Anonymous, Untitled (Child Watching Mother Cut a Fish), 1950. MMFA, purchase, William Gilman Cheney Bequest.
Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière

Shown in brightly lit renovated and modernized galleries on the ground floor of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life doubles the Museum’s exhibition space dedicated to Inuit art, and brings together works dating from 1949 to today that demonstrate richness and diversity in contemporary Inuit artistic expression.

Prioritizing a bold storytelling approach, this evolving display will be periodically updated over the next five years, allowing the public to admire a rotation of some 120 works by 70 Inuit artists from Nunavik, Nunavut, Nunatsiavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Probably Bobby Quppaapik Tarkirk (1934-2000), Untitled (Birds in a Tree), late 1960s-early 1970s. MMFA, gift of the Museum of Inuit Art, Toronto.
Photo MMFA, Christine Guest

Complementing ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life, an audio tour with detailed and evocative visual descriptions of the presentation has been specially developed for people with visual impairments. The audio tour provides descriptions in three languages – Inuktitut, French and English – and can be accessed by smartphone. There is also a display case featuring a rotating work chosen by Nunavik communities, and an upcoming series of events that will foster dialogues about the works on display.

Siku Allooloo (1986-), Sapajuji (Protector), 2021. MMFA.
Photo Frank Piccolo, courtesy of Art Windor-Essex

ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of life
The inaugural presentation of uummaqutik comprises 60 works from the MMFA’s collection – prints, drawings, textile works, photographs, paintings, sculptures and installations – by artists such as Siku Allooloo, Darcie Bernhardt, Lucassie Echalook, Charlie Alakkariallak Inukpuk, Niap, Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, Joe Talirunili and Jessica Winters, not to mention the eye-popping motorbike sidecar by Mattiusi Iyaituk and Etienne Guay, on loan from Avataq Cultural Institute, as well as a selection of works that are promised gifts from Lois and Daniel Miller. Later on, the space will also feature works by Kudluajuk Ashoona, Shuvinai Ashoona, Annie Pootoogook and Johnny Pootoogook, among other renowned artists.

asinnajaq, artist and guest curator.
Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière

Furthermore, artist Couzyn van Heuvelen has created Qulliq (2024), the MMFA’s second Indigenous art commission this year. This imposing glass sculpture, whose shape and title embody the qulliq oil lamp, widely used by Inuit, is also the artist’s first work to enter the Museum collection.

The energy that unites living beings and transforms our universe
Through these artforms, artists share with visitors their views on the simple and extraordinary moments of life, including childbirth, child rearing, everyday activities and seasonal community work. Together, the works on view portray these moments as a sharing and transmission of energy between humans and all other living beings with whom we coexist, including the plants, stones and stars.

“Humans are inspired to move by the environment and are bound in life to Sila – air, water, earth and fire – as well as to all of the other life forms that inhabit the planet. Somewhere in our relationship with the environment, its seasons and cycles shape us as humans; we too shape it in turn. Therein lies the nature of cycles of energy sharing,” explains asinnajaq, artist and guest curator.

For opening hours and ticket prices, visit: www.mbam.qc.ca