Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory & Jamie Griffiths

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is a Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller and writer. She is known for performing uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance that she infuses with a feminist and decolonizing expression. Based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, she performs internationally, collaborates with other artists and has been an advocate for Inuit artists. In 2017, Williamson Bathory was the recipient of the inaugural Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the prestigious Sobey Art Award. Williamson Bathory’s work has been featured in many exhibitions across Canada, and was recently included in programming associated with the 2022 Venice Biennale. Naak silavit qeqqa?, a two-sided video installation produced in collaboration with Jamie Griffiths, is featured in a permanent exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario that opened in July 2022.

Jamie Griffiths is a digital artist, performer, and filmmaker hailing from South London, England. She emigrated to Vancouver, BC in 1989, where her performance and photographic work focused on outsider cultures and LGBTQIA communities in the 1980’s and 90’s. In later years she began using experimental digital technology, live performance, and film to explore issues of colonialism, cultural conflict and displacement through a critical and autobiographical lens. Since 2015 she has been based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, where she often collaborates with multidisciplinary Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. She is a co-founding member of the Ikumagialiit Performance Art Band with Williamson Bathory, Cris Derksen and Christine Tootoo.