Click here to go to the article.
I thank all of you who sent me links to the article on Saturday. Following is my response to the article:
“I object to the article insinuating that art has made the situation in Cape Dorset worse than it would have been otherwise.
The fact that there is a serious drug and alcohol problem in Cape Dorset and other Inuit communities should not be blamed on the money coming in from art sales. The Inuit were forcibly taken from the land a couple of generations ago (seemingly to help them during times of famine and starvation) and placed in social and economic situations that were entirely foreign to them. It’s no wonder serious problems arose.
As far as lack of savings? Historically leading a nomadic life, Inuit were unable to save anything for thousands of years. Savings are a foreign concept to them. Instead, when they get money, they feed their families and buy things they need such as snowmobiles. Besides, with no banks in Cape Dorset, how could they possibly put money away?
Bottom line for me: it’s simplistic to create a link between the abundance of artwork and the continuing social issues in Cape Dorset.”
Further, it’s naive to think that bringing money into a poor community is going to solve complex social problems.
What do you think?
Posting this on behalf of Chris Morin of Raven Makes Gallery who faced technical difficulties in placing his comment:
Ditto to what is said here. My wife and i own Raven Makes Gallery in Oregon, which is dedicated to contemporary Native America and First Nation artists. In addition to this connection with The Peoples, we were teachers on the Navajo Reservation for 11 years and our time among them goes back to the late 1960’s when my wife grew up in rural Alaska in Athabaskan country.
Additionally, we’ve been contributing writers to Native American Art magazine.
We happened to read the New York Times article when it came out and found it short sighted and offensive. The perspective taken in the piece provides an out of context expose on the lives of the Inuit.
Yes, there most certainly are issues and challenges that are occurring at Cape Dorset. No argument with that at all. There are also issues and challenges occurring in every community, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in North America. There are also powerfully positive things occurring in each and every community too. The article failed to show any balance, however.
The hardships that Indigenous Peoples have faced since 1492 are well documented and quite real. But we have personally found, over the past 50 years, that the majority of them are individuals with good hearts, strong minds, and a steadfast determination to make their lives the best that they are capable of being, given their circumstances.
The world or art has always focused on the creativity and beauty that humans endeavor to express. An article on the works of Michelangelo is not going to deeply delve into the sordid side of daily life in Florence during the 1500’s. Focusing on the beauty and creativity is not to intentionally ignore the dark side humanity; it is done in order to balance the negativity with a very important aspect of what we can aspire towards.
There is a time and place for reporting about the adversity and misery that occurs in this world and in a community. To wrap that up within a setting of art, and fairly insinuate that the art produced by a people in a very remote and austere setting somehow contributes to those very difficulties is, at best, disingenuous. So from one published author to another, what was produced in that article strikes me as shameful and odious.
Chris Morin
Owner, Raven Makes Gallery
Thank you, Chris, for your comments. Your perspective adds a lot to an article that was written, in my opinion, by someone who did not have deep experience with or a broad perspective on Inuit history and culture. A complex cultural topic was reduced to a few talking points with a sensationalist headline.
David