Qaumma (laboratoire)

From starring in much beloved APTN programming such as Qanurli, to exploring heartache in his own short films and advocating for an Inuit performing arts centre in Nunavut to co-creating Kiviuq Returns with Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Vinnie’s dedication to art cannot be captured into a single genre. He is passionate about Inuktitut and its rightful place as the working language in Nunavut, for Inuit creating art for Inuit, processes of communication that challenge colonization and for Inuit family connections.

A founding member and artistic director of Qaggiavuut until 2021, an organization that promotes the conservation, development, and transmission of Inuit arts, Williamson Bathory is also a curator, sculptural artist, actress, stage director, and poet. In the installation Nannuppugut! (2021), which earned her the prestigious Sobey Art Award, she exhibited the skin of a polar bear that she killed while defending her family and honoured its spirit by projecting a video onto it, in which she performs a drum dance, engaging directly with the materiality and spirituality of the flesh, whether human or animal. A central element in her work is dialogue, especially with elders, whose stories she treats with love and reverence in Kiviuq Returns (2017-2019).

Her mother Karla Jessen Williamson, a pioneer in championing uaajeerneq, the Greenland mask dance, passed this art on to her along with its political significance. It would become a key element of her practice. Deploying the disruptive triad of fear, sexuality, and humour, uaajeerneq encourages exploration of the self and of humanity among both the spectators and the dancer. Williamson Bathory’s creations in various fields have received numerous awards. As an activist, she also pursues the affirmation and recognition of Inuit arts.