MMFA 2022-2023: TUSARNITUT

 

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT!

Music Born of the Cold

November 10, 2022 – March 12, 2023

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting an exhibition that is a trans-historical exploration of the fundamental role music plays in Inuit life. It brings together artworks from the 1950s to the present, providing a circumpolar perspective and a unique opportunity to appreciate differences in style and content among artists from various arctic regions.

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT! translates literally as “pleasing sounds to the ear”. The practice of song and dance among the Inuit is linked directly to their environment, culture, and lands. The exhibition offers a glimpse into the art forms common throughout Inuit Nunaat (lands inhabited by the Inuit), the area that covers the circumpolar region spanning Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and in Russia Chukotka and Siberia. These lands are home to over 180,000 Inuit people. The exhibition offers a discovery of these musical traditions and shows how they continue to shape Inuit culture today.

The art works on display are drawn from the collections of the MMFA, the Avataq Cultural Institute, as well as from local and international lenders. There are over one hundred sculptures, prints, drawings and installations that are themed around music by such renowned Inuit artists as Karoo Ashevak, Kenojuak Ashevak, Pitseolak Ashoona, Mattiusi Iyaituk, David Ruben Piqtoukun, Annie Pootoogook, Kananginaq Pootoogook, Jessie Oonark and Niap (Nancy Saunders). The works are complemented by objects, artifacts, photographs, archival footage and music clips that allow the public to appreciate the rich Inuit musical traditions through sight and sound.

The focus of the presentation are two prominent musical genres:

qilaujjaniq (drum dancing) and

katajjaniq (throat singing)

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT! also highlights the cultural transformations and musical exchanges that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period when the widespread penetration of the southern populations towards north reached the traditional Inuit lands in the Arctic regions which led to Inuit adapting new instruments and musical ideas. These historical shifts provide a basis for highlighting the evolving appearance and function of contemporary Inuit artforms of expression dedicated to the flourishing of Arctic Indigenous languages, art, and musical practices integral to the processes of Indigenous self-determination today.

The exhibition’s guest curator Jean-Jacques Nattiez is also the author of La musique qui vient du froid : arts, chants et danses des Inuit. Published in French by Presses de l’Université de Montréal, this 488-page art book offers an anthropological and historical look at Inuit musical culture and a panorama of its diverse expressions. With its references to a host of online recordings, videos and archival documents, and its abundant illustrations, this book is, above all, a homage to the immense artistic talent and musical virtuosity of Inuit people who are born of the cold.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All Photos © Nadia Slejskova

Visit the the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website to check on the opening hours and to purchase your ticket online.