McCord Museum | Niap celebrates Inuit women

The McCord Museum presents, from Friday until August 21, the Inuit artist Niap, who created a beadwork, Piqutiapiit, during a recent residency at the Montreal Museum. A work produced over six months in tribute to the strength and delicacy of Inuit women.

Eric Clement
The Press

With the exhibition Piqutiapiit, the McCord Museum continues its momentum in favor of tribal arts. As soon as the press conference opened on Tuesday morning, the president and general manager of the museum, Suzanne Sauvage, recalled that the institution on Sherbrooke Street “recognizes the disastrous consequences of colonialism for the first peoples and considers that it is its duty to contribute to a better understanding of indigenous cultures and to support their vitality”.

As part of the eighth edition of its artistic residency program, the centennial museum has chosen the artist from Kuujjuaq to draw inspiration from its collection of 16,000 objects from the First Nations, Métis and Inuit. From his inspiration was born Piqutiapiit. A work and an exhibition title meaning “precious thing” in Inuktitut. A tribute to the creative work of Inuit women, starting with her late grandmother, who did a lot of beadwork.

long-term work

Niap (Nancy Saunders) is a multidisciplinary artist known for her drawings, murals, paintings, sculptures and throat singing. But she had never ventured to create a beadwork. And for good reason. Piqutiapiit took six months of work, in his Montreal studio, with the help of his cousin.

“I was thinking of creating three works, maybe six during my residency, but when I started beadwork, I found myself arrogant! I realized how long it took women to make clothes. »

The work Piqutiapiit is placed on the wall thanks to a wooden bar. To create it, the 35-year-old artist was inspired by a typical Inuit girl’s coat (an amauti). A caribou fur garment, she explained, that takes a long time to create. “You first have to hunt the animal, skin it, remove the tendons and the fat, dry the skin, stretch it, tan it, measure it to make a pattern, cut it with an ulu,” Niap said. Then comes the beading, etc. »

Her work is a combination of sewing and beading. With felt, suede, Finnish leather, cotton, caribou skin, fur, ivory, beads (glass, brass, mother-of-pearl and turquoise), beluga whale teeth, black oak and nails. Niap remembered the headbands that Inuit women wore as well as their beaded leotards. She associated colors that give a beautiful harmony to this set of beautiful “little things”, hence the title of the work.

Strength and delicacy

The work is representative of the talent of Inuit women, their skills, their strength and their delicacy. “My grandmother represented Inuit femininity,” says Niap. She was strict, but with an enveloping sweetness. Able to do a lot of things. With hands that had worked, but were magically soft. Like my cousin who built her cabin almost alone, with her daughter. She cuts the wood. She goes on ski-doo. »

Jonathan Lainey, Curator, Indigenous Cultures, at the McCord Museum, worked with Niap to choose the museum’s works to accompany the beadwork. Photographs and objects related to Inuit women. Caribou bone needle cases, thimbles, a soapstone oil lamp (qulliq), ivory hair ornaments, bone or metal ulus (slicers), and pictures of women and young Inuit girls, with strong, open and gentle faces.

Niap has conquered many museums and private collectors with his works. But she remains humble, having first and foremost the objective of sharing Inuit culture and history as widely as possible. “My art is a gift of life,” she says. Sometimes I create a work, I look at it and I go wow! How could I do this? Often, I am not able to reproduce it! So I tell myself that I have done something bigger than me. »

Three activities

On the sidelines of the exhibition, the museum will offer three parallel activities. An intergenerational discussion workshop on femininity will be organized next Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. On April 7, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., the conference Women artists, Inuit women will allow a discussion between Niap, beading artist Julie Grenier and Concordia teacher Heather Igloliorte. Finally, on Saturday June 11, two Inuit beadwork initiation workshops will be offered by Niap.