In today’s contentious global media environment, when millions of people have been driven from their homes worldwide, Isuma media art in the UN Year of Indigenous Languages sees the forced relocation of families from an Inuit point of view. The video installation One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk recreates an encounter on Baffin Island in April 1961 when one Inuit family was ordered to move off the land. From the same place, 58 years later, Isuma webcasts Silakut Live from the Floe Edge as a multinational mining company plans a railroad and supertanker shipping past today’s Inuit communities of Igloolik and Pond Inlet. Our name Isuma means 'to think,' a state of thoughtfulness, intelligence or an idea. Isuma illuminates the consequences of Canada's relocation of Inuit in the 1950s and 60s in order to reclaim history today and imagine a different future.
ᓯᓚᒃᑯᑦ ᓴᖅᑭᔮᖅᑐᑦ ᓯᓈᓂ
Silakut Live From the Floe Edge
channel: Isuma Online: Igloolik Venice 1985–2019
In 2019 Baffinland Iron Mine’s expansion proposes a railroad across Baffin Island to ship 30 million tons of iron ore annually by supertanker through walrus breeding grounds within view of Piugattuk’s former home site at Kapuivik. Isuma webcasts Silakut Live from the Floe Edge May 8–11, 2019 to inform and consult Inuit families on the impacts and benefits of the mine’s proposal. Other webcasts through the summer lead to Silakut Live from Pond Inlet September 16–21, webcasting live NIRB Final Public Hearings to review Baffinland’s Environmental Impact Statement. Silakut Live brings global media transparency to the consequences of forced relocation to viewers in Nunavut, Venice, Canada and worldwide.