The Canadian Museum of History is hosting the travelling exhibition, Picturing Arctic Modernity – North Baffin Drawings From 1964 until September 3, 2018. Through 50 original drawings, this exhibition explores a transformative era for the people of Canada’s eastern Arctic. The drawings offer rare first-person perspectives on daily life, history and memory during a time when Inuit communities were transitioning from traditional nomadic hunting camps to permanent settlements. The 50 drawings are part of the Terrence Peter Ryan Baffin Island Drawing Collection, which the Museum acquired in 2014. Terry Ryan was resident art advisor at the Cape Dorset print studio for almost 40 years. In 1964, fearing the loss of traditional Inuit culture in the face of social change, he travelled by plane and dogsled to the North Baffin Island communities of Clyde River, Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay. There, he distributed paper and pencils and invited Inuit men, women and youth to draw. More than 150 people completed 1,842 drawings. Diverse in theme, style and subject, the drawings depict scenes of hunting practices, traditional knowledge, interactions with outsiders, landscapes and daily life. The entire exhibition (text, videos, website and in-gallery booklet) is presented in Inuktitut, French and English. The exhibition also features 42 video clips of the artists, their families and community members who provide their interpretations of the drawings.
After its presentation at the Canadian Museum of History, the exhibition will travel to the Burnaby Art Gallery in British Columbia (November 17, 2018 to January 13, 2019) and the Woodstock Art Gallery in Ontario (February 16, 2019 to June 20, 2019). history museum.ca