Tuktuujuq, an immersive installation by Ottawa-based multidisciplinary artist Taqralik Partridge, is currently featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada. Shortlisted for this year’s Sobey Art Award, Partridge’s mesmerizing installation was produced in collaboration with Iqaluit-based digital artist Jamie Griffiths, whose projections are based on archival footage of caribou herds crossing the expansive tundra, with sound by Dominic Thibault. Speaking to the CBC about the installation, Partridge said: “Tuktujuq is our name for the Big Dipper constellation. It is a constellation used for navigation. In story, it is also caribou that have turned into stars. This installation is about communicating the feeling of being surrounded by a large herd of caribou or reindeer. In Nunavik, there are two herds of caribou that were historically numbered in the hundreds of thousands. When I was younger, some of them would even come through my home town of Kuujjuaq. With this work, I am contemplating the importance of caribou or reindeer to my people and other arctic Indigenous communities, and the fragility of their existence and ours.”
