above: "The Princes of the Land and Sea" photo created by Allison Akootchook Warden, 2016.
Artist Statement
My iḷummiq was an aŋatquq, a traditional healer. I was raised near my aanas and attatas, who lived entirely on the land and were children when our remote village of Kaktovik was first invaded by the military in the early 1920’s. We had bullets, butter and flour through trading, but had not experienced direct contact until then.
In my work, I refer to the experience as ‘rapid colonization’. The military bulldozed our entire village in the 1940’s, to build a runway, with little warning. My mother was sent to boarding school and had to relearn her language. These traumas I carry and seek to transmute through my transdisciplinary art practice.
My work in all mediums has a healing intent. I start by identifying a ‘sore spot’ in the collective psyche, and then I ground myself in unbridled research. I create from the ‘feeling at the end’ that I want the audience to have after engaging with my practice.
Some ‘sore spots’ need music, some need the reflection of poem, others need to be shocked through performance art, others need the quiet of visual art or possibly the full embrace of installation. Some need the joy and transcendence of dance.
In my rap, I utilize performance art techniques as I rap as a polar bear. In my installations, I embrace the audience through social practice methods. I often read poems to people in my village before submitting and I discuss all of my work with my cousin, who is the tribal leader. I incorporate the Iñupiaq language in everything I do as our unique Iñupiaq worldview is contained within the language.
My practice is one of ‘embodied healing’. I remember the joyful, boisterous and powerful resistance of my Elders to rapid colonization, how they did not cede their spirit, their language, their land and their ancestral knowledge. I soaked up their presence as a young child, and I seek to bring their presence and their perspectives forth through my own embodiment of form, through the tools that I have sharpened, my artistic talents.
In the first half of my 2017 performance art piece, siku/siku, I am on a gallery plinth, a cube. I perform as a person on methamphetamines. For the second half, I speak only in Iñupiaq, writing in Iñupiaq on the cube until it is covered. Siku is our word for ice, and it is also what they call meth today. The piece reflects the effects of rapid colonization and shows the thin line between being subsumed by colonization versus surviving and transcending the waves upon waves that have not stopped hitting our shores.
I understand that our Iñupiaq worldview and values can be a powerful salve for humanity, and I am driven to bring our perspectives and love for life to the widest possible audience. I create to hopefully inspire the younger generation, through my actions, that they also can achieve the dreams of their hearts.
iḷummiq - great-grandmother
aana - great-aunt
attata - great-uncle
In my work, I refer to the experience as ‘rapid colonization’. The military bulldozed our entire village in the 1940’s, to build a runway, with little warning. My mother was sent to boarding school and had to relearn her language. These traumas I carry and seek to transmute through my transdisciplinary art practice.
My work in all mediums has a healing intent. I start by identifying a ‘sore spot’ in the collective psyche, and then I ground myself in unbridled research. I create from the ‘feeling at the end’ that I want the audience to have after engaging with my practice.
Some ‘sore spots’ need music, some need the reflection of poem, others need to be shocked through performance art, others need the quiet of visual art or possibly the full embrace of installation. Some need the joy and transcendence of dance.
In my rap, I utilize performance art techniques as I rap as a polar bear. In my installations, I embrace the audience through social practice methods. I often read poems to people in my village before submitting and I discuss all of my work with my cousin, who is the tribal leader. I incorporate the Iñupiaq language in everything I do as our unique Iñupiaq worldview is contained within the language.
My practice is one of ‘embodied healing’. I remember the joyful, boisterous and powerful resistance of my Elders to rapid colonization, how they did not cede their spirit, their language, their land and their ancestral knowledge. I soaked up their presence as a young child, and I seek to bring their presence and their perspectives forth through my own embodiment of form, through the tools that I have sharpened, my artistic talents.
In the first half of my 2017 performance art piece, siku/siku, I am on a gallery plinth, a cube. I perform as a person on methamphetamines. For the second half, I speak only in Iñupiaq, writing in Iñupiaq on the cube until it is covered. Siku is our word for ice, and it is also what they call meth today. The piece reflects the effects of rapid colonization and shows the thin line between being subsumed by colonization versus surviving and transcending the waves upon waves that have not stopped hitting our shores.
I understand that our Iñupiaq worldview and values can be a powerful salve for humanity, and I am driven to bring our perspectives and love for life to the widest possible audience. I create to hopefully inspire the younger generation, through my actions, that they also can achieve the dreams of their hearts.
iḷummiq - great-grandmother
aana - great-aunt
attata - great-uncle