All are welcome and no experience is required.
Join artists Oleepika Nashalik and Talia Metuq at this social sewing circle that celebrates the beauty and use of traditional materials such as beads, hides and fur.
Oleepika and Talia share some of their handmade work and discuss designs and techniques passed on by their ancestors. Participants have the chance to complete a small project working with sealskin. You are also encouraged to bring your own sewing projects and materials that you would like to swap with others.
Participants have an opportunity to explore the world of Inuit mythology with the game Inuit Uppirijatuqangit, developed and written by Talia Metuq (art by Ian MacLean, produced by Pinnguaq). This game invites users to learn the traditional oral stories told by the Elders while creating a mode of preservation of Inuit culture.
Oleepika and Talia welcome mothers, daughters, grandmothers, Elders, aunties, friends, and anyone interested in learning from each other in the time honoured tradition of the sewing circle.
Oleepika and Talia are artists in the exhibition Art and Waste in Panniqtuuq, Nunavut at The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, open 23 October–3 November 2023.
Art and Waste in Panniqtuuq, Nunavut
The Art and Media Lab, The Isabel
23 October–3 November 2023
Artist Opening Celebration
The Art and Media Lab, The Isabel
24 October, opening remarks at 6:30 PM
Artist Talk
featuring Inuit Knowledge Holder Madeleine Qumauqtuq
The Art and Media Lab, The Isabel
25 October, 5 pm
Indigenous Talking Circle: Environmental Racism Is Garbage
The Art and Media Lab, The Isabel
26 October, 5–7 pm
Talia Metuq is an Inuk game developer, an organizer of the Makerspace movement in Nunavut, and the Community Engagement and Special Projects Coordinator at Pinnguaq Association for five years. She studied at Fleming College, VCAD, is on educational leave and enrolled in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. From game player to game designer, Talia is an awesome auntie who enjoys making crafts, beading, knitting, and sewing.
Oleepika Nashalik is an Inuit artist whose powerful and expressive drawings and paintings contrast aspects of the traditional Inuit way of life with modern ways, reflecting on how the two cultures are bound together through contradicting material and cultural shifts seen in her lifetime, understood in a historical and geopolitical context.