RAM Showcase: Kinngait Prints

June 12 – August 10, 2024
at RAM’s Wustum Museum

Pitseolak Ashoona
Summer Tent of Old, 1969
Color stone cut, edition 6/50
24 x 36 1/2 inches
Racine Art Museum, Gift of Devra Miller Breslow
Photography: Jarvis Lawson

While certain forms of image-making were practiced historically in the region, printmaking was not introduced to Kinngait (formerly known as Cape Dorset) in Arctic Canada until the 1950s. With purchases being made from cooperatives or artists directly, printmaking as a creative practice has become a primary economic stream for multiple generations of Inuit artists over the last few decades.

Most often experimenting with the printing techniques of etching, engraving, lithography, and silkscreen, the Kinngait artists tend to favor subjects and imagery that address the natural world, story-telling, and myths. This direction in subject matter echoes the content of other Kinngait art practices such as carving and drawing. Contemporary Inuit artists expand upon these traditions with work that embraces the past but might also raise critical questions about identity, social and cultural dynamics, and politics.

Home to North America’s largest contemporary craft collection, RAM also has an extensive collection of works on paper that includes fifteen prints from Kinngait artists and a limited edition book featuring works by one of the most prominent printmakers, Kenoujak Ashevak. This exhibition is a sampling of RAM’s current holdings in this area—Kinngait works are being incorporated into other museum programs such as theme exhibitions and social media as well.

The presence of this work in RAM’s collection is invaluable as it reflects an important arena for diverse voices in contemporary printmaking. And it introduces, most likely, new artists into the vocabulary of RAM and Wustum visitors. RAM strives to increase its holdings by contemporary Indigenous makers to showcase these creative visions and help preserve them for future appreciation and consideration.

More About the Exhibition

Exhibition Notes (PDF)

Learn about the RAM Showcase exhibition series

Press Room

For Further Research

Kinngait artists’ work gets worldwide audience as studio marks 65 years | Nunatsiaq News

Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait | Institute of American Indian Arts

A Family of Artists Creates a Portrait of Inuk Life Across Three Generations | Hyperallergic

How three generations of women artists in one indigenous family tell the story of a century of change | Los Angeles Times

Indigenous Matrilineality: Resisting Annihilation Through Arts And Spirituality | Contemporary Review of Genocide and Political Violence

Artists in the Exhibition

Kenoujak Ashevak, Pitseolak Ashoona, Etidlooie Kingmeata, Kananginak Pootoogook, and Keeleemeeoomee Samualie