July 28, 2000
VALERIE G. CONNELL
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — It began last year with a program called "Our Life in Stone" and can be seen outside the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Centre — it continues this year with a program called "Nunavut Stone 2000."
NACA, the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, plans to bring carvers and sculptors together from across the country to Iqaluit for the second year of a two-year Nunavut sculpture symposium funded by a Canada Council grant, says Kyra Fisher, NACA’s project co-ordinator.
Four participants from the first year’s symposium "Our Life in Stone," have been invited to a "big stone symposium" in France in 2001, said Matthew Nuqinqaq, NACA’s chairperson and a board member with the Nunavut Arts Council.
Nunavut Stone 2000 will be divided into two sessions planned for 2000, the first between Aug. 18 and Sept. 11 and the second from Sept. 8-30, Fisher said.
NASA is seeking additional funding to help defray the costs of Nunavut Stone 2000, she said.
The symposium is different because sculptors work with hard granite rather than more traditional, softer rocks, like serpentine, which are used in the communities.
Fisher said the idea of bringing artists together enhances tourism and gives artists a chance to learn from each other, so that younger artists get to learn from master carvers.
"Lots more Inuit people are employed by arts than bureaucracy in Nunavut," said Beth Beattie, NACA’s co-ordinator.
The Our Life in Stone symposium was the first time many sculptors worked with granite on monumental sculptures.
"They can use anything because there’s lots of granite around," said Beth Beattie, NACA’s coordinator.
Twenty-six sculptors from all over Canada took part in the nine-week symposium, which was divided into three three-week sessions.
The Kakivak Association, the Iqaluit Elders Society and the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth of the Nunavut put money into the symposium last year.
NACA’s core funding comes from the Nunavut Department of Sustainable Development.
"It’s such a great feeling being chair man and seeing all this happen," Nuqinqaq said. "I had to make a song about it."