ᐃᓱᒪ / Isuma (founded in 1990 and based in Igloolik, Canada) is Canada’s first majority Inuit-owned media production company. Known internationally for films written, directed and performed in Inuktitut, including the Caméra d’Or award-winning Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) and One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019), ᐃᓱᒪ represented Canada at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). In 2021, ᐃᓱᒪ started the world’s first Indigenous language television station, Uvagut TV, currently broadcasting 24/7 to over 600,000 homes across Canada.
Learn more about Isuma’s practice by listening to Zacharias Kunuk on episode 6 of the Toronto Biennial of Art Podcast “Short Format”, available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
Works
Isuma at Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Location: Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Co-curated by asinnajaq and Barbara Fischer, Qaggiq: Gathering Place brings together a selection of video works by Isuma, giving consideration to the expanded role of media as a space for conversations about colonial history, the role of digital democracy, and Inuit agency in present-day negotiations of land and resources. Qaggiq:…
Isuma at Small Arms
Location: Small Arms Inspection Building (2019)
In April 1961, the Cold War is heating up in Berlin and nuclear bombers are being deployed from bases in Arctic Canada. In Kapuivik, north Baffin Island, Noah Piugattuk and his family live and hunt by dog team as his ancestors did when he was born in 1900. When the…
Programs
Short Format Podcast Series
Short Format is a podcast series created by Aliya Pabani and Angela Shackel for the Toronto Biennial of Art. In expanding dialogues around the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art, selected artists discussed their practice and processes in a series of short format podcasts and audiograms. Participating artists and collectives included…