Chirac promotes Inuit culture on the Web

SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — French President Jacques Chirac unveiled a new web site this that will function as a virtual museum for Inuit art.

At a gathering inside the Nunavut Francophone Association’s building in Iqaluit on Monday, Chirac said the site is an important step in promoting Inuit culture.

“A site that will allow us to see works of Inuit culture is, I think, something very important, because it concerns a very great culture, and great artists, that have not been as known as they should be in the world because of a lack of communication,” Chirac said.

Located at http://ambafrance.org and hosted on a server used by the French embassy in Ottawa, the Virtual Museum of Inuit Art was the brain child of the francophone association’s computer wizard, Stephane Cloutier.

Cloutier said he was visiting Ottawa in June when, by chance, he met some employees of the French embassy.

“I had heard about John Amagoalik’s visit with the French president,” said Cloutier. He had heard that Amagoalik and the president had talked about the possibility of cultural exchange programs and Cloutier asked the embassy if any programs had been started.

“They said there was basically nothing, and that it was actually up to people to make proposals.”

So Cloutier did make a proposal. He pitched a website showcasing the work of Inuit artists because he knew Chirac would soon be visiting Iqaluit and that the French president was interested in Inuit artwork.

After discussing the idea with the francophone association and with the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit, Cloutier got down to work with staff from the French embassy to get the site up and running in time for Chirac’s visit.

“I worked day and night on it. It was a lot of hard work,” Cloutier said. But the work seems to have paid off.

Despite the short deadline the site features virtual reality exhibits of 20 pieces of Inuit art. The site uses Quicktime 3-D software to allow viewers to turn sculptures 360 degrees and see them as three dimensional objects.

“You have to take an awful lot of pictures” said Cloutier of the painstaking process, which involved putting the sculptures and pottery on turntables and slowly rotating them a fraction of an inch and then photographing them.

The site also features Real Audio sound files of elders telling traditional stories. Cloutier says he wasn’t able to get the stories translated in time to have English and French sound files, but he says there are printed transcripts of the stories in English, French and Inuktitut.

“It was important for me to also have the Inuktitut on the web site,” said Cloutier, who also speaks some Inuktitut himself.

The site went over very well at the unveiling, drawing applause from the assembled guests and much picture-snapping from a pack of foreign and Canadian reporters and press photographers.

“Any day you have someone who is interested in the culture of your country — we really appreciate that,” said Prime Minister Jean Chretien of France’s assistance in developing the web site.

The francophone association’s president, Jacques Fortier, said he is delighted by Chirac’s visit.

“It is something that I don’t think will ever be done again to have all three leaders, President Chirac, Prime Minister Chretien and the premier, Paul Okalik — it’s quite something,” said Fortier.