Exhibitions

Through performance, collaborative projects, writing and curatorial work, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory situates transcustomary Inuit cultural practice within a highly personal and political context. Uaajeerneq—Greenlandic mask dancing—forms the core of her practice. It is a provocative and improvised performance practice that explores themes of sexuality, fear, humour and the limits of human knowledge. 

The exhibition’s title, Sikuvoq, sikuerpoq / When the ice holds, when it breaks, references the cyclical formation and deformation of sea ice. From this shifting ground, edges and crossings emerge and recede—shorelines, passages between realms, and moments where land, ice, history, and perception refuse to settle into a singular reality. 

At the centre of the exhibition are two collaborative works that unsettle in different but connected ways. White Liar and the Known Shore: Frobisher and the Queen confronts colonial histories of discovery, naming, and possession, placing viewers at the shoreline as a site where land is rendered “known” and power is asserted—asking how these histories persist and how viewers are implicated within them.  

Silaup Putunga —meaning “the hole in the universe”—is a large-scale, double-sided video installation rooted in uaajeerneq that unsettles singular perception, holding multiple realms—ordinary and extraordinary—at once. Selected in dialogue with this work, drawings, prints, and paintings by Inuit artists depict scenes of hunting, doubling, and encounters with supernatural beings, positioning images themselves as thresholds or passageways between worlds.  

Together, the works move from edge to immersion, narration to sensation, offering ways of seeing that hold multiple realities at once. Within the broader framework of Carried by rivers, held by lands, the exhibition affirms that knowledge is not static or contained, but carried through land, ice, bodies, images, and movement. 

Curatorial Team 

Carried by rivers, held by lands is curated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, Co-Executive Director and CEO, and Tarah Hogue, Adjunct Curator (Indigenous Art), Remai Modern, Saskatoon; and Maria Lind, Director, Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiruna. 

Artists 

An internationally acclaimed artist, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is the recipient of the 2021 Sobey Art Award and the inaugural 2020 Sinchi Indigenous Art Award. Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk), she is a performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller, and writer, widely recognized for her contemporary practice of uaajeerneq (Greenlandic mask dancing) and her collaborative approach to making art. A founding member and former Artistic Director of Qaggiavuut, Williamson Bathory is a strong advocate for Inuit artists. She grew up in Saskatoon and currently lives and works in Iqaluit, Nunavut.. 
 
Jamie Griffiths is a digital artist, filmmaker, performer and photographer, working across mediums, exploring issues of identity conflict, colonialism, transparency and displacement. Originally from the UK, Jamie spent 20+ years based in Vancouver and has lived in the territory of Nunavut in the Qikiqtaaluk region (Baffin Island) since 2015. In 2016, Jamie began an ongoing creative collaboration with Inuk artist, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, creating new film, photography, media installations and stage collaborations. In 2018, Jamie launched Chickweed Arts, a Nunavut-based film production company, producing short films and mini-documentaries focused on Inuit issues in Nunavut. Jamie is also a founding member of Ikumagialiit, a performance art band formed in 2019 with Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Cris Derksen and Christine Tootoo. 

Carried by rivers, held by lands

Carried by rivers, held by lands is a multi-year project that convenes a group of artists with diverse practices living and working across the northern hemisphere, from urban centres to remote, rural, and reserve communities. In response to its location on the banks of kisiskâciwani-sîpiy (the South Saskatchewan River), Carried by rivers, held by lands considers the museum’s connections to multiple elsewheres. 

Coalescing around land- and water-based livelihoods and knowledges, Carried by rivers, held by lands foregrounds the critical interdependencies and specificities that define our shared present and collective future, particularly considering the urgencies of the climate crisis and the inheritances and status of colonial capitalism. Rather than a group exhibition, it is an exercise in creating connections and building alliances between artists, artworks, and locations over time—an attempt to create a context across distances, based on affinities and shared concerns, and a belief in the importance of staying with the trouble. As Donna Haraway writes, this means learning to be truly present in ‘mixed-up times’ marked by both devastation and joyful resurgence, and cultivating situated relations of response and alliance rather than deferring responsibility to an imagined future. 

Carried by rivers, held by lands
is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts