Join us for a Lecture at the Portland Art Museum – Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait

SUNDAY, JUNE 23

2:00PM Lecture

Portland Art Museum
Whitsell Auditorium
1219 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR 97205

Adult – $20
Senior & Students – $17
Children 17 and under are free and members are free.

Ticketed event. Please register online.

Annie Pootoogook (Inuit, 1969 – 2016), A Portrait of Pitseolak, 2003 – 2004.
Pencil crayon and ink on paper, 26 x 20 inches. Edward J. Guarino Collection, Yonkers, New York.

Exhibition curator Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo) will join us to speak about the exhibition Akunnittinni: A Kinngait Family Portrait. She will discuss her curatorial process in bringing together the work of three Inuit women artists in visual conversation with each other as well as the cultural history of three generations in Kinngait, a remote Inuit community located in the Arctic region of northern Canada.

This exhibition is organized by the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition at the PAM is sponsored by the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) and the Portland Art Museum’s Center for Contemporary Native Art.

Andrea R. Hanley

Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo) is an arts advocate with three decades of professional experience in the fields of exhibition development and arts management, primarily focusing on American Indian art. She is currently the membership and program manager for the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her career has been guided by the work of contemporary American Indian artists and the American Indian fine-art field.

The exhibition is on view in the Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) Center for Contemporary Native Art, and includes approximately 18 prints and drawings that chronicle a visual dialogue between an Inuk grandmother, mother, and daughter – Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook, and Annie Pootoogook. Their artworks provide a personal and cultural history of three generations of Inuit women whose art practices included autobiographic narratives and chronicled intimate and sometimes harsh memories and historically resonant moments. The prints and drawings on view also include sardonic references to pop culture that now infuses everyday life in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), as well as nuanced depictions of family and village life. Kinngait is a remote Arctic community located on Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula at the southern tip of Baffin Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. The region is known internationally for their artwork, produced in places like the now famous Kinngait Studios (West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative) since the 1940s. Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook, and Annie Pootoogook are among the most recognized artists from this region.