The Newsroom
Deal Annnouncement: Kinngait: Works from the Cape Dorset Drawings Archive
Kinngait: Works from the Cape Dorset Drawings Archive is a collection of essays and responses by Inuit artists, designers, curators, writers, and thinkers to the newly digitized Cape Dorset Drawings Archive.
Home of one of Canada’s most iconic studios, Kinngait, Nunavut has produced artists known globally, such as Kenojuak Ashevak, Kananginak Pootoogook, Annie Pootoogook, among countless others. While they are best known for their printmaking studio, Kinngait deeply explores the impact and importance of the medium of drawing in Kinngait, not just as a precursor to printmaking, but as a discipline in and of itself.
Illustrated with more than 150 striking images from the archive, many of which are never-before-seen, Kinngait depicts a moment of tremendous social transformation for Inuit throughout the latter half of the 20th century as they were forcibly relocated into settlement, interrupting their traditional semi-nomadic and subsistence lifestyles. In Kinngait, Inuit respond to these themes of change, colonization, and resilience—which continue to colour lived experiences—and place the work of the studio in the context of the Inuit art landscape of the future.
Led by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection’s Associate Curator, Indigenous Art and Culture, Emily Henderson, Kinngait documents the development of art and innovation in one of Canada’s most iconic artist’s studios throughout the second half of the 20th century and how it remains enduringly relevant for the future.