By Meghan Power
“I spent 25 years working in my family-run galleries in Lake Louise, Banff and Victoria, selling masterworks of Inuit and First Nations’ art to visitors from around the world, educating people on Indigenous people’s contribution to art. You learn a lot about people in how they listen to these contributions.”
Sophia, has her Masters in Adult Education, and is an expert in Inuit art. In 2018, Sophia spoke at TEDxYYC on The Art of Survival: A Modern-Day Inuit Odyssey, a complex history of culture and art through thought provoking and endearing storytelling. She has spent a lot of time understanding how people learn about art and how Inuit art creates connection in relation to where it’s made. Sophia believes there is a great need for educational resources to be updated, especially when it comes to telling the stories of Indigenous artists and art. “The resources that teachers are using in classrooms to teach about life in the Arctic could use art to help to make our stories about culture and cosmology come alive.”
With the help of an Indigenous Artist Microgrant from Calgary Arts Development (CADA), Sophia was able to begin the development phase of her idea: an Inuit Art Cube. “I wanted to find a way to make the learning resources accessible and the structure simple. I didn’t want there to be some of the intimidating elements of museums and galleries, like pedestals. It had to be easy to ship, and work well within the confines of a classroom.”
For Sophia, the development stage was all about exploring what might be possible and working in a creative flow — following tangents and ideas. She began playing with boxes and the idea of the acrylic cube evolved from there. “The cube is simple, relatively low cost to make, and easy to transport. It allowed me to create a mini-exhibit that had essential learning components contained together: written narrative, an Inuit sculpture, a map of Nunavut, and a learning activity. This concept was born out of the confluence of my artist mind, my curatorial mind, and my educator mind.” The first iteration of Inuit Art Cubes will be designed for Kindergarten to Grade 3 learners.
“I’m so grateful to CADA and the CADA team, and their strong understanding of how to work with artists. They understand that we are thinking outside the box, well, in my case inside the box — but they get it. They understand the need for artists to have the space to be creative and explore. I feel they also understand and respect the differences in the ways Indigenous artists work, which is essential to helping Indigenous artists to ground in their work and in some cases embarking on a journey of re-discovering ways of knowing and making.”