No Part Wasted

Throughout my life, I have witnessed significant changes. Our world and our people are exploited, and our way of life is paying the price. Snow comes later and leaves earlier; our pastimes and methods of survival are quickly receding as pollution washes onto our shores and showers down onto us. “No Part Wasted” reflects the decline of our humanity as our social contracts erode in the name of profit. Our bodies become interlinked with pollutants, burdened by our creations in lockstep with the earth’s ecocultural degradation.

The sculpture features a child carrying a sled made from the wood of my deconstructed painting easel which has been with me since the start of my artistic career. This easel, now transformed into a sled, symbolizes the journey of my artistic career, filled with its own set of challenges and triumphs. Scattered at the child’s feet are oil paint palettes from every painting I have done, representing the foundation of my past work. In the centre of the child, midway between the easel and the palettes, is a blank wooden canvas functioning as the hip bone, symbolizing the internal potential of creation that keeps us moving forward.

Additionally, there is a profound religious element to this piece. Colonization and Christianity have robbed us of so much as Indigenous peoples. We were banned from practicing our culture and traditions and forced to live by the Bible and colonizers’ rules. We were abused and made to live in silence and shame as a tool of control and submission under the guise of religion. Today we struggle with intergenerational traumas and are burdened by the weight of religious persecution and cultural displacement. We’ve lost connection to our communities due to the isolation the church imposed.

In my sculpture, the sled is carried in a way that mimics Christ carrying the cross on his back, persecuted by those around him and forced to carry the structure of his undoing, which also became the symbol of his movement. The easel, now a sled, poetically relates to the burden of religion in our Inuit communities and the love-hate relationship Indigenous artists have with their art. We must create art to survive in a capitalist world, but we also make art as a self-fulfilling means of expression that helps us endure and reconnect to one another.

As natural materials meld into synthetics and microplastics make homes out of our organs, we must make our way up this hill together or risk losing ourselves entirely. The piece emphasizes the resilience and perseverance required to navigate the burdens of colonization, religious persecution, and environmental degradation, highlighting the enduring strength and resourcefulness inherent in our traditions.

In creating this piece, I wanted it to feel authentic to my experience and to embody the theme of “creation” stories. Growing up, we would use so many random things to make our bikes, sleds, and treehouses. Everything was made with what we had and often looked a bit odd, but it was real and made with love. “No Part Wasted” carries this spirit, making use of what I had to create something deeply personal and representative of my journey as an Inuit artist.