Aidainnaqduanni

Maureen Gruben

Video

Generating complex narratives around tensions between land as home and land as finite industrial resource, Aidainnaqduanni (Inuvialuktun for ‘We are finally home’) presents three old, deteriorating polar bear rugs that I brought back to the Arctic after they were gifted to me by a southern museum. They have been paired with industrial survey tripods found among the detritus abandoned in Tuktoyaktuk by oil companies. Throughout a week-long installation during winter freeze-up, sea ice gradually accumulated around the base of these assemblages, shifting the bears’ positions such that their gaze slowly tilted up towards the stars. An accompanying video offers a counterpoint to the stillness of installation photographs by sharing the artist’s perspective as she walks over new ice that has formed along the shoreline; each step cracks with perfect clarity through the silent Arctic air.