Indigenous Success Stories: Inuit

Shuvinai Ashoona. Photo by Kitra Cahana. Courtesy of West Baffin Cooperative. And Greg Staats by Greg Staats, auto portrait.

Windspeaker.com: Greg Staats, Skarù:reˀ [Tuscarora] from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario, and Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona from Kinngait, Nunavut are 2024 Governor General award winners in visual and media arts.

Both Staats and Ashoona credit their Indigenous cultures as the inspiration for their visual creations.

Ashoona, the second artist from the West Baffin Cooperative to receive the award, credits her sister for giving her the nudge to start drawing more than two decades ago at 33 years of age. Ashoona has since created many mixed media works depicting Inuit culture from her own experiences and surroundings.

Her work has garnered accolades, including the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2018. She was also one of two special mentions by the jury of the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2022.

Much of her artistry reflects the beauty that surrounds her in the north, “the mountains, or the town, or the workers,” Ashoona said.

She is thankful for the recognition and is proud to be one of the award winners.

“(There are) great artists all around… and I’m grateful for being one of them,” she said.

Staats is also pleased to be recognized for the work he has done since he began in photography in 1985.

He is a founding member of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographer’s Association and was awarded the 1999 Duke & Duchess of York Prize in Photography from the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2021 he received the Toronto Arts Foundation’s inaugural Indigenous Artist Award. 

At the age of 61, though his subjects and presentation may have changed, his keen eye and ability to evoke feeling through the lens has not.

“I call it, or we call it, Indigenous intuition and so, very similarly to photographic intuition we develop as photographers, we develop our own visual language as well. So there’s a parallel with my visual language and my Indigenous knowledge,” he said.

Staats’ photography, video and installation art showcases elements of symbolic importance to his community.

Landscapes, portraits, historical artifacts and sequence photography are all captured in his work.

“When I transitioned from straight photography to installation photography, to installation with objects … I brought all those transferable skills that I had as a photographer,” said Staats.

“Instead of seeing a piece of paper as the print, you can see the wall as the image and you can start placing things on the wall; objects with photographs, with text, to get an overall feeling from an installation.”

By combining his artistic skills with the knowledge he has gained from his ancestors, Staats is able to convey messages and stories in a unique format.

“As a photographer we develop an intuition after a while that draws you to subject matter that you keep repeating and repeating,” he explained. “So, I usually take photographs of landscapes… (or) I use archival materials, my grandfather’s diaries, old newspaper clippings and I’ll incorporate those as well into what I call a mnemonic. So that all comes from the idea of wampum and oral tradition.”

He explained he will take questions to knowledge keepers and asks them to explain them. This could include the meaning of a word and its orientation, or the significance of certain areas in his community. From there he creates images that convey the stories and captures the feelings of his home or from upstate New York.

“So it depends on what I want to say that photography can’t say and sculpture and installation can,” he added.

All of the artists will travel to the Governor General’s residence in Ottawa this fall to officially receive their awards.

Ashoona and Staats were among six recipients of this year’s Governor General awards. The others are Barbara Astman, Dominique Blain, Don Ritter and Métis filmmaker Marjorie Beaucage (see our story here https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/filmmaker-seen-awarded-her-community-commitment).

“Each one of the eight winners of the 2024 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts is a visionary in their own right,” said Michelle Chawla, director and chief executive officer of the Canada Council for the Arts, which created the awards program with the Governor General of Canada in 1999.

“Through a unique, evocative and bold view of the world, these artists have succeeded in awakening new perspectives, contributing to public debate and propelling society forward. My congratulations to each one of them for their contributions to visual and media arts and for continuously challenging and inspiring audiences to reimagine what is possible.”

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.

‘I have many, many memories of that wild, God-praising, foul-mouthed, Elvis-singing, fun, dancing woman’

CBC News: Friends and colleagues are remembering Annie Ford, a long-time CBC North reporter and host who died this month, as a champion of Inuktitut broadcasting, a dedicated journalist, and a fun-loving character with a wild sense of humour.

“She was like a mentor, she was like a big sister, she was like a mom. She was a great friend of mine,” said Madeleine Allakariallak, former host of CBC North’s Igalaaq. “I have many, many memories of that wild, God-praising, foul-mouthed, Elvis-singing, fun, dancing woman that we all got to know and learn from.”

Allakariallak recalls taking her first job with CBC North in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, where Ford was also based at the time. She said Ford’s professionalism, and her dedication to her work, was inspiring. “She disciplined us without mercy, she would argue with you without mercy — and they were all life lessons,” Allakariallak said. “She made sure that she put us all on pedestals, and reminded us of our strengths and how we’re going to get through things and surpass difficult times. And that was her gift to us.”

Ford, 67, was born in Coral Harbour, Nunavut, and was a teenager when her family moved to Rankin Inlet in 1970. She attended residential school in Iqaluit, and later worked with the Arctic Research Training Centre with Inuktitut scholar Mick Mallon.

Ford’s younger brother, Kono Tattuinee, said his sister got into broadcasting — first at CBQR-FM and then later the CBC in Rankin Inlet — because she was “a born entertainer,” who also strongly believed in Inuit culture and identity.   “She loved people … she had a tremendous heart for all of us Inuit,” Tattuinee said.

William Tagoona, another long-time CBC North broadcaster in Kuujjuaq, Que., worked with Ford for decades. He described how Ford was part of the public broadcaster’s shift toward more Inuit language broadcasting in the early 1980s, led by the late Jose Kusugak, CBC’s former area manager for the Kivalliq region.  “Much of CBC was dictated by English, and Inuktitut followed — and Jose didn’t like that. He felt, up in the North, it’s Inuktitut that must lead and English will follow,” Tagoona recalled.

“So he started to surround himself with people that he knew could make that happen with him, and Annie Ford was one of those.”

Ford worked for many years at the CBC in Rankin Inlet before moving to Iqaluit in the late 1990s. Over the years, she covered plenty of big events, from the founding of Nunavut on April 1, 1999, to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Greenland in 2010, and the Arctic Winter Games. She hosted several of CBC Nunavut’s Inuktitut-language radio programs at various times, and presented the radio news in Inuktitut.  

Family, and hockey

Family was key for Ford, according to her brother — but so was hockey. Tattuinee said in the early 1970s, the Philadelphia Flyers was his sister’s team, before she permanently switched her allegiance to the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

Ford would later make history alongside the late Charlie Panigoniak when they offered, for the first-time ever, play-by-play commentary of an NHL game in Inuktitut during Hockey Day in Canada. 

Ford was also never afraid to tackle difficult issues as a journalist, according to Tagoona. She could be tough when she needed to be, he said, and always found a way to connect with people. “Working as a journalist … you have to, in a lot of ways, have a very big iron will because people are going to push back at you while you’re trying to get certain stories. They don’t want to talk about it,” Tagoona said.

“Annie was good at pulling them in, and getting their trust to go on air with her.”

Patrick Nagle, the former area manager for CBC Nunavut who retired last year, also worked with Ford for many years and came to admire her professionalism and dedication. “One thing for sure about Annie was, she believed really strongly and really deeply in the work that she did. She was a champion for Inuktut language on the radio, and for the quality of the work that people were doing,” Nagle said.

“And she was relentless, in terms of making sure that the job got done.”  Ford was also a straight-shooter, Nagle said. “I always knew that she would tell me truthfully what she felt, and what she felt needed to be done,” he said.

Ford retired from the CBC in 2020 but according to Nagle, she never tuned out — she’d often call newer staff members to offer help and encouragement, he said.  “I think Annie’s passing is a real loss, and I really treasure that time that I had to work with her,” Nagle said.

Nunatsiaq News – A long-awaited all-Inuit-language cable and satellite television channel will launch at 12:01 a.m. this Monday, Jan. 18. Nunavut Independent Television and Isuma TV will operate the new channel, called Uvagut TV. In English, the word “uvagut” means “us” or “we.” The new channel, announced this morning, will broadcast 168 hours of Inuktut programming each week — 24 hours a day, seven days a week — from producers such as the Inuit Broadcasting Society, Isuma TV, Arnait Video, Artcirq, Kingulliit and Taqqut Productions, and the Inuvialuit Communications Society.

That will include five hours of children’s programming per day, including IBC’s well-known Takuginai show.
NITV, Isuma and the Inuit Broadcasting Corp. have been working with Shaw and Arctic Co-ops since last September to obtain an Inuit-specific television channel.Arctic Co-ops offers cable television in 19 Nunavut communities and two in the N.W.T., using Shaw’s satellite service. Shaw’s own direct-to-home satellite service is also available in the N.W.T. and Nunavut.

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) and Inuit TV Network – launch Inuit TV with a special Nunavut Day announcement. NTI is investing more than $2.4 million, over three years, to strengthen Inuktut, Inuit culture and identity and access to information in Inuktut, the majority language of the territory. Currently, there is a lack of Inuktut programming on Nunavut television to balance the daily influence of western culture and language.
As an independent broadcaster Inuit TV will help to counter that influence by educating, entertaining and engaging Inuit in Inuktut. In its first year, Inuit TV will do occasional special broadcasts, and ramp up to a regular schedule of programming in 2021.

Inuit TV’s mission is to be an independent Inuit television broadcasting service that informs, educates, entertains and engages Nunavummiut. Inuit TV will promote, preserve and enhance Inuktut while reflecting Inuit identity and culture.

Journalists for Human Rights – Launched in 2014 the Indigenous Reporters Program seeks to increase the quality and quantity of Indigenous stories and voices in media in Canada. To achieve this the program:

• Works directly in and with Indigenous communities, engaging interested community members on journalism and media literacy capacity building programming.
• Creates pathways of opportunities for Indigenous peoples to pursue careers in journalism through internship, mentorship and networking opportunities ultimately strengthening Indigenous voices in Canadian media.
• Engages and trains non-Indigenous journalists and journalism students on best practices for reporting on Indigenous stories to ensure stories are reported on with more accuracy, frequency, and offer better informed perspectives.

“Our original target was to train 300 people, and we’ve now trained over 1,600,” says program lead Megan Fowler. “Our goal is to move beyond a one-time training approach and assist with curriculum development and institutional changes that increase the quality of reporting on Indigenous stories.”

APTN is the first national Indigenous broadcaster in the world and has served Indigenous peoples in Canada as well as Canadian audiences, for over two decades. Steadfastly adhering to its mission: “to share our Peoples’ journey, celebrate our cultures, inspire our children and honour the wisdom of our Elders.”
Aimed at both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audiences with programming to interest all viewers: children’s animation, youth, cultural and traditional programming, music, drama, news and current affairs, as well as live coverage of special events and interactive programming.