Artist Taqralik Partridge wants to transform viewers with wonder and awe

Inuk artist, writer and curator Taqralik Partridge is interested in the meeting of disparate parts. "How things that are not supposed to exist together do exist together," she says in a video for the National Gallery of Canada. 

"I think it's a reality of many aspects of life as an Inuk, both for Inuit who live in communities in the North, but also for Inuit who live away. You have to be comfortable with a kind of oil and water kind of life — things don't mix, but they're together in the same pot."

Partridge, who is currently based in Ottawa, is one of six finalists competing for the $100,000 Sobey Art Award — the largest prize in Canadian art. The artist has been selected to represent the Circumpolar region, added just this year.

Originally from Kuujjuaq, the largest village in Quebec's northernmost region of Nunavik, Partridge is known for her broad-reaching art practice, which includes beadwork, textile, photography, video, installation, poetry and performance.

"My whole life, I have been a person who has to make things," she says in an email interview with CBC Arts. 

To get to know the six finalists vying for the Sobey Art Award, CBC Arts sent each artist a questionnaire. Read on to learn how place influences Partridge's art, what she absolutely needs to work her best, as well as the profound effects of awe and wonder in art.

The winner of the 2024 Sobey Art Award will be announced on Nov. 9. You can find all of our 2024 Sobey Art Award coverage here. 

When did you know you'd be an artist? 

Since I was a child. My whole life, I have been a person who has to make things. 

What does art allow you to do?

It allows me to connect with many different communities and to examine and share questions I have about the world around us.

Is there a question, inquiry or investigation central to your art practice? What is it?

I'm interested in a meeting of disparate parts. How do we as human beings reconcile things we do with what we say we believe?  

Why do you practice the disciplines you do? Why do you use the materials you do? 

For me, there is no difference between making things with physical materials, a camera or words. The source of all this creative work is the same. I bring disparate materials together with the same questions I mentioned about the idea of the work.

How does place influence your art?

Place and situation in relation to land and people is so important for me as an Inuk artist. Like other Indigenous artists, I am always thinking about whose homeland I am working on, how can I talk about my homeland [and] what responsibility do I have to this place and the ones who live here?

To work best, what do you absolutely need?

I need my rent paid. 

What was the most impactful work of art — in any medium — you experienced this past year?

Rehab Nazzal's exhibition Driving in Palestine at SAW (curated by Stefan St-Laurent) was beautiful and gut-wrenching in its subtlety. I also really liked Kōji Yakusho's performance in the film Perfect Days.

Can you tell us about the artwork you're showing at the National Gallery of Canada for the Sobey Art Award exhibition?

Tuktujuq is our name for the Big Dipper constellation. It is a constellation used for navigation. In story, it is also caribou that have turned into stars. This installation is about communicating the feeling of being surrounded by a large herd of caribou or reindeer. In Nunavik, there are two herds of caribou that were historically numbered in the hundreds of thousands. When I was younger, some of them would even come through my home town of Kuujjuaq. With this work, I am contemplating the importance of caribou or reindeer to my people and other arctic Indigenous communities, and the fragility of their existence and ours.

How does it exemplify your practice?

I take questions I have and try to examine them from different angles. I'm also interested in a sense of awe and wonder. With this work I am trying to encourage the viewer to think about these questions — or to think about their own questions. Awe and wonder give people a moment to step outside their status quo and perhaps readjust their thinking. I always hope this can be what people encounter in my work.

The winner of the 2024 Sobey Art Award will be announced on Nov. 9 in Ottawa. The Sobey Art Award exhibition continues at the National Gallery of Canada through April 6, 2025.