2023 Annual Meeting of the Inuit Art Society
September 28 to October 1, 2023, in Brunswick, Maine
This fall we’ll be traveling to Maine! Brunswick is the home of Bowdoin College and its renowned Peary MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Program. We are working with the college and museum to create some special programming for this year’s meeting.
2023 Conference Program
The museum is in the process of relocating to a new space in May. As part of our program, we will be given private, curated tours of the museum, highlighting this year’s two exhibitions. “Collections and Recollections” features their original collection and tracks its expansion through newer acquisitions. The second exhibition spotlights five Inuit photographers and is co-curated by Inupiak photographer, Brian Adams.
The Planning Committee is finalizing the list of presenters and specific details about the speakers and the program will be forthcoming.
Lodging in Brunswick
A 20 room block at The Brunswick Hotel has been set aside for us. The hotel is contiguous to the campus. Much of the conference will conveniently be held at the hotel, including Saturday night’s banquet.
Because the conference falls at the peak of the autumn tourist season, availability of rooms will be extremely limited. Although the deadline to reserve a room in those set aside is August 1, we suggest that you reserve earlier. In order to reserve a room in the set aside block, you must use the direct hotel phone number, not a booking service. The number is 207-837-6565.
Getting to Brunswick
The nearest airport to Brunswick is Portland (PWM) Airport which is 25.4 miles away. Other nearby airports include Augusta (AUG) (29.3 miles), Bangor (BGR) (84.3 miles), Manchester (MHT) (101.1 miles) and Boston (BOS) (120.1 miles).
American Airlines, Republic Airways, United, Delta, WestJet, Southwest Airlines, jetBlue, Endeavor Air, Cape Air and PSA Airlines fly direct to Maine. Air Canada partners with United and has flights into Maine.
Registration
Registration information will be available later this spring.
Information on the 2022 meeting in Vancouver
The 2022 Annual Meeting was held in Vancouver, Canada, September 29 & 30 and October 1 & 2. It was a great meeting! You can see what we did here.
Virtual Meetings
The IAS now holds occasional virtual meetings via zoom.
IAS members will automatically receive a link. If you are not a member and are interested in attending a virtual meeting, contact us for more information or go ahead and become a member!
Past Virtual Meetings
These included three show-and-tell presentations featuring favorite works from the collections of members of the Inuit Art Society (IAS) and the Arctic Arts and Culture Society (AACS) in Vancouver, BC, with one show-and-tell focusing on prints, carvings, and wall hangings illustrating Inuit legends.
Our most recent virtual meeting featured shamanic pieces by Judas Ullulaq, Charlie Ugjuk, Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok, Josiah Nuilaalik, and Floyd Kuptana. (You can view the presentation slides here.)
Other meetings featured Inupiaq watercolorist Amanda Jane Davison from Elim, Alaska, Baker Lake textile artist, Eva Noah, whose grandmother was Jessie Oonark, Inuk artist David Merkuratsuk who uses pointillism in his work, and Alaskan artist Vera Shoogukwruk, a a Siberian Yupik/Inupiaq from St. Lawrence Island and White Mountain Alaska who has produced a beautiful collection of parkas, kamiks, mukluks, mittens, and jewelry. Other speakers included Michael Warren from the Madrona Gallery in Victoria, BC and Simon Griffiths, the owner of ABoriginArt, a virtual gallery located in Vancouver, BC.
painting by David Merkuratsuk
Artful clothing by Vera Shoogukwruk
Other news
Making Art on Top of the World
From the New York Times: Near the Arctic Circle, Shuvinai Ashoona, a star of the Venice Biennale, and her community of Inuit artists refuse to let isolation stand in their way.
Read the full story here. (Limited free access.)
Houston’s Mattiusi webisode
As usual, John Houston is busy telling the stories of the north and its people. That includes a short film that follows Mattiusi Iyaituk as he creates the “Flying Shaman” sculpture. Read more and get links in our post.
