NACA promotes prefab studio plan for Nunavut

Here’s what the prefab studio that the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association would like to see in five Nunavut communities looks like.

Some day, when tourists arrive in a Nunavut community such as Resolute Bay, they’ll find a place where they can watch local artists and artisans work.

And this workshop will not be a tent or a shed — but a eye-catching white building whose sharp lines recall the edges of an iceberg.

Inside, three studios and a public space will provide artists and craftspeople with a modern, well-lit and heated place where they can work and visitors can watch them at work.

The Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association wants to see these prefabricated studio buildings located in at least five Nunavut communities.

NACA’s executive director, Rowena House, is already approaching hamlets to see whether they’re ready to support the studio plan and future efforts to raise the $1 million each building will cost.

While that may seem like a stiff price, participants at last week’s Nunavut tourism conference in Iqaluit heard how these kinds of “cultural spaces” can serve as important draws for tourists.

That’s because may tourists like to visit places where they can experience culture, that is, a place’s unique heritage, artistic, or lifestyle.

But they need a place where it’s easy to make this contact.

Some communities in Nunavut already have these spaces. There’s the Soper House Gallery in Kimmirut, Kinngait Studios in Cape Dorset, the Uqqurmiut centre for arts and crafts studio in Pangnirtung, the Jessie Oonark Arts and Crafts Centre and visitors centres in Pangnirtung, Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay.

Schools, community centres and other places can also be used as cultural spaces, said Adrian Wortley, the regional program manager for Heritage Canada, at the tourism conference, where he advised Nunavut communities to “use what you can.”

His department can’t afford to cover the costs of large infrastructure projects, he said, but it did pay for the big-top tent that Alianait uses to mount its summer arts festival in Iqaluit.

Besides NACA, another group in Iqaluit is also looking for new, more permanent cultural space — the Qaggiavuut Society for a Nunavut Performing Arts Centre hopes to undertake a study on the viability of Nunavut’s first regional performing arts centre later this year.