Artists open window between Gwangju, Arctic

Participants pose in front of the Canada Pavilion held at the Yangnim Art Center in Gwangju, Sept. 5. Starting from third from left are co-curators William Huffman and Sun Lee, Culture Minister Yu In-chon and Canadian Embassy Charge d'Affaires Rouslan Kats. Courtesy of Kari-Ann Goaziou

GWANGJU — "Home and Other Places," this year's Canadian Pavilion exhibition in Yangnim Art Center for the Gwangju Biennale, transcends the familiarity one might expect from a second consecutive exhibition of Inuit art at the event. After schedule disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 15th Gwangju Biennale opened just over one year after the 14th, to return to its even-year biannual cycle.

It was at last year's Biennale that a special connection between Gwangju and the Canadian Arctic began to develop. It seems appropriate that for the 2024-2025 Year of Cultural Exchanges between the two nations, a unique collaboration has produced an exhibition that manages to be wildly different from its predecessor.

"The idea of differentiating this pavilion from last year's was exactly the starting point for the creation of this pavilion," co-curator William Huffman explained.

Ooloosie Saila's art is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

In 2023, Inuit art made its way to Gwangu for the first time. For the 14th Gwangju Biennale, assorted works from the West Baffin Art Collective in Kinngait (Cape Dorset) in Canada's northern territory of Nunavut were exhibited at the Canadian Pavilion in the Lee Kang Ha Art Museum. The exhibit proved popular; visitors were thrilled with the duality of their experience, connecting with a culture that seemed mysterious and isolated while realizing that the art's nature themes resonated with Korean shamanist traditions. Interest was growing, and art thrives with intertest. Where could it go from there?

"We had 93 works by 32 artists. Really, why would you do something like that? It's such a big exhibition; there're so many objects," Huffman said, before answering his own question. "It was to give a survey. We put together something that would give people an idea of what goes on in this weird little studio in this weird little place in the Arctic, thinking that that was our engagement and that we would move on. But with the invitation to come back in 2024, we had less than a year to conceptualize what this is, and to be confronted with the fact that people will remember what the 2023 Pavilion looked like when they come into this one."

Qavavau Manumie's art is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

Co-curator Sun Lee, who also co-curated with William in 2023, described what happened during that time that allowed this exhibition to take shape.

"After successfully concluding the 'Faith Becomes Reality' exhibition at the Canada Pavilion last year, I traveled to the Arctic in November. This June, we made another trip to the Arctic," Lee said. "As a result, we have been preparing for this year's Canada Pavilion exhibition."

Art by Shuvinai Ashoona is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

This year's exhibition features nine artists, including six Inuit artists and three Korean artists.

"It is an immense honor for us, and I feel deeply joyful to be able to introduce the lives and works of Inuit artists in this unique space," Lee said.

The exhibition carries the theme "Home and Other Places." The Inuit artists created new works presented through wall drawings. In an underground space, resident artists present their work through various genres and approaches inspired by the Arctic.

"Inuit artists and artists living in Gwangju are exploring the concept of home in diverse and creative ways," Lee said. "This exhibition delves into the different stories and memories surrounding home while also carrying a forward-looking message about the kind of homes we will live in in the future."

"The idea was to take the idea of what Inuit art is, the stuff that people really appreciate about it, the things that resonated with the audience here and try to amplify that," Huffman added.

The artists presented ink drawings, all in black and white, originally done on paper and blown up into wall murals, done by two local artists. Huffman explained why all the art was monochromatic.

"One was that we wanted it to be unified so that when you come into the space, you need to concentrate on what you're looking at, to recognize 'Oh right, this is Shuvinai Ashoona, this is Qavavau Manumie, this is Ningiukulu Teevee,' because it's all black and white," he said. "The other reason we wanted black and white is that (in) the final week of the exhibition, we are inviting the public to color the works!"

Saimaiyu Akesuk's art is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

The collaboration between artists in Gwangju and Kinngait, 8,770 kilometers and several days of travel apart, took immense effort.

"Two delegations came from Gwangju to Kinngait," Huffman said. "Think about what that looks like. When we presented the exhibition last year, lots of local artists were fascinated by this, and that's what developed the initial discussions. There seems to be an appetite for artists to come to Canada, to the Arctic. I think after the two delegations — most of the participants came twice — people are talking with familiarity about the Arctic. What we've always tried to do with the West Baffin Cooperative, the organization I work for is that because we are isolated on this tiny little island in the Canadian Arctic, it is fundamentally important for us to collapse geography. I have to have discussions with other places in the world or we won't function. This has been a shining example of how we've been able to do that. Halfway across the planet, we've been able to develop a circumstance where we've got Korean artists comfortable in the Arctic, who know they have a place, and vice versa, the Inuit artists in Kinngait now have a place here."

Lee described her own feelings in making the journey.

"The Arctic we thought we knew and the 'Qanittaq' ('freshly fallen snow' in the Inuktitut language) we experienced firsthand were actually quite different," she said. "While the natural environment of the Arctic is often the focus, my purpose for going was to meet the Inuit artists. Encountering people who have embraced this land as their destiny was a profoundly unique, mystical and memorable experience for us."

Artist Lee Jo-heum sighed deeply as he described his own experience going to Kinngait during the summer. "It's really beautiful and awesome, but a little weird, and very hard to go there." Laughing, he elaborated on what was weird. "There was no night! It was always bright. I'm Korean — the temperature was like my country's winter."

Korean artist Lee Jo-heum poses with two examples of his artwork displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz.

Lee described his interpretation of the theme.

"Thinking about home, my opinion is that our home is our body," he said. "Our parents give us a body, and start our life, and then we make our own body; we develop muscles and scars. So I painted this face, body, hands and feet. I think Korean and Kinngait people, something is very different, but something is very similar. So I drew two people."

Huffman expanded on the results of the collaborative interpretation of the exhibition's theme.

"There are two very different groups of artists here, from Gwangju and from Kinngait, responding to idea of home, and where home came from. Not only were the artists interested in each other's practices, but they also had these questions, 'What do you do when you're in your place, what is your family life, what kind of food do you eat, what is your history, what is your geography and climate?' We realized the questions here are not just what kind of drawings do you make, what kind of sculptures you make, what kind of installations you construct, what is your creative expression…it really is about who you are and what made you, and fundamentally what made your work. These are the questions being asked," he said.

"You can see how different, when you go into the exhibit(ion)'s subterranean level, those works are very different from the works you see on the main floor, and these works by the Inuit artists are very different from each other. These are a number of different perspectives coming together and answering 'What is home? How do you define a place?'"

Culture Minister Yu In-chon stands in front of a wall mural created by Pitseolak Qimirpik displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 5. Courtesy of Kari-Ann Goaziou

He added that after three years of visiting Korea, his own cross-cultural experience has helped define the exhibition.

"I'd never been to Asia prior, and what's happened for me is this transformative moment when you can develop a network, you can develop a place somewhere that's completely foreign," he said. "The language is different, the culture is different, the food is different from what I'm used to in Canada. So even from my curatorial perspective, how interesting that's been, what is this relationship between Canada and Korea, me and my counterparts in Gwangju, that's what this show talks about."

Gesturing at a screen playing a short film about Inuk artist Kenojuak Ashevak Board produced in 1964 by the National Film Board of Canada, Huffman contrasted the visiting artists' expectations and experiences at the Cape Dorset Cultural Centre and Print Shop.

William Huffman, left, gestures at a screen playing a video by Ju Sae-woong featuring Mathew Nuqingaq inside the Canadian Pavilion at Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 5. Courtesy of Kari-Ann Goaziou

"When you see something like this, the historic representations of Inuit lifestyle, I think that's what people expect, and that's largely what the Korean artists expected," he said. "It was nothing like what they expected. The studio we have in the Arctic isn't what anyone expects. It's a state-of-the-art facility. Like no other place on the planet, to tell you the truth. If you weren't looking onto the tundra and the blizzards and the polar bears lumbering through town, you would think you're anywhere, you're in New York, Paris, London — it's that sophisticated. That's what makes what the artists do really remarkable in comparison to other circumstances in the world. The fact that this form of expression comes out of such a remote place, but in that place, we've spent the money and the consideration to build the studio to allow this to happen. It was the intention with those two delegations that they would research and determine what kind of response they wanted to create to their experience in the Arctic."

Huffman explained one of the most striking pieces, a collection of enormous sculptures of barnacles.

"It's crazy stuff, these amazing barnacles," he said. "There are these very poetic moments with (the artist) Kim Seol-a where she's interviewed the Inuit artists about what does the soul look like, and she's drawn a response to what the artists said. Again, those conversations were very fundamental and practical on (the) one hand but very poetic on the other. Let's talk about how would you conceptualize the soul, and that became the raw material that she processed into the work."

Kim Seol-a's sculpture inspired by barnacles is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

Stepping off the street in Gwangju into the exhibition space is wondrously disorienting. Sounds of melting ice fill the background, while windows are covered with Arctic landscapes, and videos play Arctic scenes.

"The idea of experience is what we're trying to create here," Huffman said. "We've created a domestic environment that changes the way you interact with things. When people are here, they're looking at work, and they are being pulled back and forth between Gwangju and Kinngait, back and forth between the history of Inuit art and what's happening now, this narrative we're creating within a geographic context. What does it mean to come to this studio and see artists working? What does it mean to come to the Arctic and experience the tundra? That's all here."

Ningiukulu Teevee's art is displayed at the Canada Pavilion in Gwangju's Yangnim Art Center, Sept. 7. Courtesy of Arlo Matisz

Just as last year's exhibition led to this one, how will this collaboration evolve?

"What's the next step?" Huffman asked. "That's really a critical point. We are talking about the next step, what does further discussion look like. This relationship, what does this mean to have an experience together, it needs to be long term, we need to invest in this. Moving forward, we have a lot more ideas for how this is going to manifest."

Lee touched on her own hopes for the next step.

"I hope that visitors to the Canada Pavilion exhibition will come with an open heart to appreciate how Inuit artists and Korean artists have collaborated and expressed their ideas," she said. "It would be wonderful if they could respect the diverse cultures represented here and embrace the artistic creations that these artists have produced in their pursuit of freedom and peace. We also hope that these works will continue to be showcased not only at the Gwangju Biennale and the Canada Pavilion but in other places as well."

Arlo Matisz is an economics professor at Chosun University in Gwangju.