Inuvik's Great Northern Arts Festival is back in full swing
CBC News | July 15, 2022
Categories: news
Art is healing, says gallery manager Roberta Memogana
Karli Zschogner · CBC News · Posted: Jul 16, 2022 6:00 AM CT | Last Updated: July 16
For Roberta Memogana, the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik is more than a celebration of art and music. Art is healing, she says.
Memogana is an artist from Ulukhaktok, N.W.T. This year, she's taking a step away from the workshops she usually holds in order to serve as the festival's gallery manager.
"Art is almost a therapeutic," she said. "It's a learning process and mixing your mediums, from carving to sewing, and sewing to painting... it makes you want to create more things and add them together. I try to learn as much art as I can from one of the artists and challenge myself to try and do it."
The festival's events are back in full swing this year after it was cancelled due to COVID-19. Events began July 8 and run through to Sunday.
Held at Jim Koe Park and the Midnight Sun Complex, artists have come from across the country to participate — and even, in the case of one graphic novel artist, from Belgium.
Throughout the festival, people signed up for workshops with artists.
The festival also featured Inuvialuit storytelling with Roberta Kuptana, shows by the musician, filmmaker and educator Miranda Currie, demonstrations of northern games demonstrations and performances from musicians The Beluga Boys, the 18-year-old Ulukhaktuk accordion player Devon Notaina and the Inuit collective Artcirq.
Painter, writer, and sports hall-of-famer Antoine Mountain was scheduled to read from his memoir Bear Mountain: The Life and Times of a Dene Residential School Survivor on Friday.
The festival ends July 17 with a fashion show and final ceremonies.
