SPACETIME

In this issue we bring together some inspiring voices that defy political boundaries—diverse, but united with a deep and shining love for their roots. We bring forward some of our most pressing questions and concerns from our perspective as a pair of Inuuk from the diaspora. Throughout, our main purpose is clear: to make space for Inuit and other circumpolar Indigenous artists. The following principles helped us narrow our focus through all the beauty of the circumpolar world and its artists: the cyclic and immemorial nature of time; past and future kin; releasing binary-based thinking in all regards; the importance of community; and our transcendent relationship to the cosmos. We found inspiration in the work of the Isuma collective, and celebrate their selection to represent Canada at its pavilion for the 2019 Venice Biennale. The community-based, forward-looking, high-tech work of Isuma is foundational. Isuma has pushed through and beyond the forced aesthetics expected of Inuit art, unsettling the line between traditional and contemporary. In a similar battle, we question the boundaries of North and South (what do these terms even mean?), seeking ways that one may be Inuk outside their homelands. In her Keynote, Tarralik Duffy ties together the strings that outline what makes Inuit unabashedly unique and contemporary. Time and time again, boundaries are forced upon us. Our work is to dispel them. —Kablusiak and asinnajaq ᐊᓯᓐᓇᐃᔭᖅ