Inuit Genealogy

reblogging johnfass

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Currently working on a research project related to Canadian and Greenland Inuit with R0gMedia in Berlin. The diagram above is a genealogical diagram made in the mid 1950s by anthropologist Jean Malaurie, the first of its kind. It’s a hand made radial drawing, Malaurie has a whole series of them in his apartment in Paris, along with his extensive personal archive of research materials including photos, films, notebooks, drawings. While the broader aims of the project are to find an institution willing to host the collection, I’m trying to make an digital artefact out of this diagram that could bring the information alive and demonstrate how historical anthropological materials can be made relevant and contextualised for present and future generations. DIS2012 published a paper on this project for a workshop about slow technology. Slow technology DIS2012

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Karoo Ashevak

Karoo Ashevak

Karoo Ashevak, (Fantasy) Figure with Birds, 1972

Karoo Ashevak (1940 – October 19, 1974) was an Inuit sculptor who lived a nomadic hunting life in the Kitimeot, central Arctic region before moving into Spence Bay in 1960. His career as an artist started in 1968 by participating in a government-funded carving program. Working with the primary medium of fossilized whalebone, Ashevak created approximately 250 sculptures in his lifetime, and explored themes of shamanism and Inuit spirituality through playful depictions of human figures, shamans, spirits, and arctic wildlife