Critical Writing Index

Frozen but Always in Motion:: Arctic Film, Video, and Broadcast

by Jerry White

The Velvet Light Trap, Spring 2005, no. 55, pp. 52-64

Jerry White discusses the ways in which Inuit artists use low-cost technologies to document disappearing traditions. Various formal aesthetics create a kind of narrative inefficiency, which produces a sense of lyricism that in and of itself, is evocative of the rhythms of everyday life. The medium manipulates time and space, and is characterized by a tension between linear and open-ended impulses, renegotiating the visual meaning of near-obsolete Indigenous cultural practices and their relationship to the Arctic landscape.

ITEM 2005.210 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Natsik Huntinh – Mosha Michael

The Hunters/Asivaqtiin – Mosha Michael

Whale Hunting/Qilaluganiatut – Mosha Michael

Qaggiq – Zacharis Kunuk

Saputi – Zacharis Kunuk

Nunavut – Igloolik Isuma

Ataguttaaluk Starvation – Arnait Video

Quilliq – Arnait Video

Piujuk and Angutautuq – Arnait Video