Profile | Norman Cohn

LOCATION: Canada

Norman Cohn (b. 1946, New York) is currently co-Project Leader with Zacharias Kunuk on Digital Indigenous Democracy, the 2012-13 initiative by Isuma TV and other partners to inform and consult Inuit using new media to improve democratic participation in the Baffinland Iron Mine environmental review. Cohn also is Kingulliit Productions co-founder and president of Isuma Distribution International and IsumaTV; of Kunuk Cohn Productions Inc.; and was one of the four founding partners of Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. in 1990. Living from 1985-2005 in Igloolik and Montreal, Cohn developed with Kunuk, elder Pauloosie Qulitalik and the late Paul Apak, Isuma’s signature style of ‘re-lived' cultural drama, combining the authenticity of modern video with the ancient art of Inuit storytelling.

Cohn is producer and director of photography for Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, Nunavut (Our Land) and the rest of Isuma’s collective videography; and co-director and co-writer with Kunuk on The Journals of Knud Rasmussen. Before coming to Igloolik Cohn’s solo video exhibition, Norman Cohn: Portraits, opened in 1983 at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, and other Canadian museums, and his experimental non-fiction feature, Quartet for Deafblind (1987), was selected for Dokumenta 7. Winner of a 1990 Guggenheim Fellowship, Cohn was co-winner with Kunuk of the 1994 Bell Canada Award for Outstanding Achievement in Video Art.

 

Uploads by Norman Cohn

Link to: Nunavut (Our Land) Episode 8: Avamuktulik (Fish Swiming Back and Forth)
Nunavut (Our Land) TV Series Episode 8. Igloolik, Spring 1946. Inuaraq throws his bones at the river and finds the fish swimming back and forth. Back at the tent Qulitalik sends the young men out...
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Norman Cohn
2008-12-04 03:00
Link to: Nunavut (Our Land) Episode 9: Aiviaq (Walrus Hunt)
Nunavut (Our Land) TV Series Episode 9. Igloolik, Summer 1946. The distant sound of the atookatookatook ¼, the first gas engine to arrive in Igloolik, brings a surprise visitor to Qaisut, island of...
Norman Cohn's picture
Norman Cohn
2008-12-03 04:00
Link to: Nunavut (Our Land) Episode 10: Qaisut
Nunavut (Our Land) TV Series Episode 10. Igloolik, Summer 1946. After the walrus hunt everyone is happy. There will be lots to eat for a long time. Children climb the famous cliffs of Qaisut,...
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Norman Cohn
2008-12-02 05:00
Link to: Nunavut (Our Land) Episode 11: Tuktuliaq (Caribou Hunt)
Nunavut (Our Land) TV Series Episode 11. Igloolik, Fall 1945. Even here, news of the terrible world war raging outside makes people frightened and uneasy. They talk of the danger of the unknown...
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Norman Cohn
2008-12-01 06:00
Link to: Nunavut (Our Land) Episode 12: Unaaq (Harpoon)
Nunavut (Our Land) TV Series Episode 12. Igloolik, Fall-Winter 1946. Sitting around the stone house carving a harpoon, Qulitalik starts talking about the year gone past. Everyone joins in with...
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Norman Cohn
2008-11-30 12:00