ARTCIRQ

In December 2005 visitors to Project were able to view a screening of ‘Artcirq‘, a video that followed Igloolik’s Inuusiq youth drama group and students from Montreal’s Circus School as they brought circus arts and Inuit performance together in a presentation for members of the community of Igloolik.

Between April 5th – 11th, Project Arts Centre presented works by the independent Inuit media collective, Igloolik Isuma (To Think) Productions in a viewing library in the Project Gallery. Project will continue its collaboration with Artcirq by presenting a residency with artists from the collective Guillaume Saladin, Leah Angutimariq and Derek Aqqiaruq. During this period, the gallery will be transformed into a rehearsal space in which Artcirq artists collaborated with students, community groups and passers by in Dublin to workshop a performance in progress, other members of the collective made guest appearances from Igloolik via a live webcam.

The rehearsal space also featured an independent viewing station for visitors interested in seeing more work by Artcirq and Igloolik Isuma Productions.

Since their first performance and video in 1998, Artcirq continue to develop their work at the intersection of circus arts, Inuit performance, media production and social action, providing an open workshop for young people in the Igloolik community to collaborate creatively. -While their ‘Artcirq‘ video has been screened around the world, this residency in Dublin marks the group’s first project outside of Nunavut.
Since 1990, Isuma Productions has generated independent, community-based media from and Inuit point of view, working from Igloolik, a remote hamlet in the Canadian Arctic. It is Canada’s first Inuit independent production company using video, audio, TV and the internet to develop projects, which preserve and communicate Inuit culture and foster economic development in Igloolik. Isuma has received international acclaim for its representations of life from an Inuit point of view. It received the Camera d’Or prize for the feature film ‘Atanarjuat – The Fast Runner‘ at the Cannes International Film Festival.

One of two Artistic Directors of Artcirq, comes from a family of anthropologists. He spent part of every year in Igloolik untill he was 15, with his father, who has written extensively on the community. After graduating from UQAM in 1998 with a degree in Sociology and Communication, he helped start the Artcirq project in response to his devastation about youth suicides in the community. At this time, he was also attending the National Circus School of Montreal. In 2001, he joined the cast of Cirque Eloize’s Nomade as actor/acrobat, for a 4-year world tour, directed by the world renowned Daniele Finzi Pasca from Theatro Sunil, Lugano. Saladin now lives in Igloolik on a permanent basis to coordinate Artcirq’s next performance and video for international touring.