Norman Cohn

Norman Cohn was born in New York in 1946 and received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1968. He has been an independent video artist for twenty-five years with exhibitions including MOMA, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Dokumenta 7, Germany, ICA London and others. In 1990 Cohn was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.

By 1979 Cohn had immigrated to Prince Edward Island and initiated his video portraits of children, Children in Hospital (1979-1980), including Peter in Long Term Care. In 1980-81 he produced a series of portraits of Canadians entitled How We Lived and in 1983 he released In my end is my beginning, a five part three-hour video study of residents in an old age home in Springdale, Newfoundland. These videos were included in a solo exhibition of sixteen videotapes, Norman Cohn: Portraits, first presented in 1983 by the Art Gallery of Ontario, and then traveling to six other Canadian and American museums. In 1986 Cohn completed Quartet for deafblind, a feature-length experimental collaboration with a nine-year old deaf and blind boy, one of six Canadian works selected for Dokumenta 7 in Kassel, Germany, and recently broadcast by TVOntario. In 1987-88, prior to moving permanently to Igloolik, Cohn was artist-in-residence at First Bank Minneapolis, where he produced Bank, an experimental video "process" work involving seventy videotapes and fifty bank employees.

Short bio:
Born in 1946 in New York, Norman Cohn travelled to Igloolik in 1985 to meet Zacharias Kunuk and Paul Apak after seeing videos they had made while working for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. In 1990, assisted by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cohn moved to Igloolik, where, with Kunuk, Apak and Pauloosie Qulitalik, he co-founded Igloolik Isuma Productions, and helped develop Isuma’s style of “re-lived” cultural drama by adapting the authenticity of video observation to the art of Inuit storytelling. Cohn’s experimental video work began in 1970 in the U.S.; he immigrated to Canada in 1976 and became a Canadian citizen in 1981. In 1983, Cohn’s exhibition of 16 videos, Norman Cohn: Portraits, opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and 49th Parallel Gallery in New York. In 1987, his experimental non-fiction feature Quartet for Deafblind was shown at Documenta 8.

Artist Code: 116

Videography

ISUMA INUIT CLASSIC COLLECTION: 1987-2009

2015, colour, Inuktitut, French & English subtitles

Kobe

2012, 30:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English Subtites

Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change (Le savoir inuit et les changes climatiques)

2010, 54:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, with English or French subtitles

Tungijuq

2009, 07:23 minutes, colour, No dialogue

Exile

2009, 46:45 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English Subtitles

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen: A Sense of Memory and High-definition Inuit Storytelling (Companion Book)

2008, 00:00 minutes

Issaittuq (Waterproof)

2007, 45:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut

The Complete Isuma Collection***Eureka Hard Drive and Complete Set of DVDs***40 films from 1987 to 2007 at Highest Digital Quality suitable for Museums, Film archives and other serious collectors.

2007

Unikkaat Sivunittinnit (Messages from the Past) CD

2007, colour

Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (Soundtrack CD)

2007, colour

Isuma Inuit Studies Reader

2007, colour

Exploring Inuit Culture Curriculum Gr. 4-6

2007, colour

407

2006, 08:47 minutes, colour, English and Inuktitut

Inuit Piqutingit (What Belongs to Inuit)

2006, 49:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

2006, 112:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, w English subtitles, w/ French subtitles

Kiviaq Versus Canada

2006, 46:49 minutes, colour, English

Qallunajatut (Urban Inuk)

2005, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English, French subtitles

Kunuk Family Reunion

2004, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English, French subtitles

Angakkuiit (Shaman Stories)

2003, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles

Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (companion book)

2001, colour

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner

2001, 161:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, English subtitles

Artcirq

2001, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles only

Ajainaa! (Almost!)

2001, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles

Nanugiurutiga (My First Polar Bear)

2000, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles

NIPI (Voice)

1999, 51:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles

Arviq! (Bowhead!)

1998, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles

Episode 13: Quviasukvik (Happy Day)