Gallery spotlights Inuit perspectives in winter-themed show

An Inuk ‘Mother Hubbard’ parka from 2001, on loan from the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq, is on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The parka features bright calico fabric and a “sunburst” wolf-fur hood and has no known artist attribution. (Photo by Nehaa Bimal)

Inuit knowledge, memory and resilience are at the centre of a new National Gallery of Canada exhibition that explores the way people across cultures have experienced and responded to the winter season.

Winter Count: Embracing the Cold, brings together more than 150 works by 95 global artists spanning the early 19th century to the present, from Canadian painters Clarence Gagnon and Lawren S. Harris to French impressionist Claude Monet.

It’s the first major collaborative project between the Ottawa gallery’s Canadian art, European, American and Asian art, and Indigenous Ways and Decolonization departments.

A wide range of Inuit works are featured, from prints and sculptures to textiles and ceramics.

Highlights include works by Kenojuak Ashevak, Pudlo Pudlat, Itee Pootoogook, Jessie Oonark, Helen Kalvak, Elisapee Ishulutaq and Yvo Samgushak.

For Jocelyn Piirainen, an associate curator in the gallery’s Indigenous Ways and Decolonization department, the exhibition is a chance to highlight Inuit perspectives of winter.

“When I was asked to collaborate [on this exhibition], I brought my own knowledge around Inuit art and my own personal experiences as an urban Inuk,” said Piirainen, who was born in Cambridge Bay and now lives down south.

“With an exhibition that is themed around winter, Inuit and all of the circumpolar Indigenous nations are really the ones that hold that knowledge of how to survive and navigate the winter season itself.”

One section of the exhibition focuses on the themes of community and isolation, a contrast Piirainen says is deeply familiar in the North.

“It’s one of the of the prominent themes that we wanted to feature since wintertime is a time to reflect, to gather, and be with family and community members,” Piirainen said.

“For Inuit, winter can be very long with 24-hour darkness, and that does affect a person. So when the community comes together, it is to celebrate and that’s when a lot of games are played.”

Upon entering the exhibit, visitors are greeted by Iqaluit-born artist Couzyn van Heuvelen’s Qamutiik, a serpentinite sculpture of the traditional Inuit sled.

An untitled ceramic work by Rankin Inlet artist Yvo Samgushak, on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, is featured in the Winter Count exhibition section titled community and isolation. (Photo by Nehaa Bimal)

Other featured Inuit artwork ranges from the 1961 print The Return of the Sun by Ashevak and Pudlat’s 1983 Winter Bird to prints depicting winter games, clothing and seasonal travel across ice and land.

One highlighted piece is The Hardship of Winter, by Pangnirtung artist Malaya Akulukjuk, printed by Jacoposie Tiglik in 1983.

The stencil on paper reflects a period of transition in Inuit life, showing sealskin tents alongside “matchbox” homes introduced in the 1950s.

In selecting objects for the exhibition, Piirainen drew from major collections across the country, such as the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq and the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which has an “expansive collection of northern boots and textiles,” she said.

The Bata Shoe Museum also lent a set of four Inuit-made sealskin dolls, created by unknown artists and dressed in traditional winter clothing.

“I would like people to walk away with having a sense of connection, not only a connection that so many artists have to their ancestry and to their culture, but also connection between the artworks that come from different times and places,” said Wahsontiio Cross, associate curator for the Indigenous Ways and Decolonization department.

The exhibition opened Thursday and will run until March 22, 2026.