Nunavut Media Arts Centre nets QIA support

Estimated to cost more than $10 million, the new media arts centre, spearheaded by the Inuit Broadcasting Corp., would provide Nunavut’s first full-scale, state-of-the-art, digital recording and production facilities. (FILE PHOTO)

On March 29 the Inuit Broadcasting Corp. moved one step closer to realizing its plan to build a $10-million Nunavut Media Arts Centre in Iqaluit.

Qikiqtani Inuit Assoc. president Okalik Eeegeesiak and QIA vice-president George Eckalook handed Madeleine d’Argencourt a cheque for $100,000 on March 29 to kick-start the IBC’s building campaign for its Nunavut Media Arts Centre.

“It was QIA’s provision of Inuit-owned land that turned the Centre from a 30-year dream to a reality,” D’Argencourt said. “This most recent contribution will help us move to the next stage.”

The Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency announced earlier this year that it would give IBC $108,000 to hire a project management team for the new centre.

By the summer of 2013, the centre should be in operation, IBC said in a March 29 news release.

“The centre will bring media arts to a new internationally-competitive level of production service and capacity,” it said.

As described by IBC, the centre’s proposed 8,000-square-foot building on Federal Rd. close to the Nunavut legislature, will be a state-of-the-art digital facility for audio, video, recording, performance and post-production.

The media arts centre will also house the Inuit Film and Video Archive, a facility where all the old tapes from IBC can be preserved, catalogued, digitized and stored safely.

It will also provide office space and post-production facilities for IBC’s subsidiary, Inuit Communications Systems Ltd., which does contract work with government agencies, businesses, designated Inuit organizations, community organizations, social service agencies, and other non-profit groups and private broadcasters from across Nunavut and the rest of Canada.

And the centre will be available for use by local and territorial freelancers, performers, artists and independent production companies.