July 30 to september 12, 2026

List of artworks available soon

ᐃᓕᓴᑦᑕᐅᒋᐊᓕᒃ - Ilisattaugialik:

Something That Needs to be Learned

This exhibition of the Permanent Collection explores the relationships between animals and other creatures through a selection of objects and artworks created by makers and artists from Nunavik and held in the collection at La Guilde. Through a multitude of functional and decorative objects, this gathering of works engages Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. Composed of six principles, this exhibition pertains to qanurtuuqatiqiinniq, which is translated as being innovative and resourceful.

While the Inuktitut phrase [Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit] is often simply translated as “Inuit traditional knowledge,” it can be more accurately understood to encompass the complex matrix of Inuit environmental knowledge, societal values, cosmology, worldviews, and language. The term Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit comes from the verb qaujima or “to know,” referring to “that which Inuit have always known to be true.” (Igloliorte, 102)

Following timelines of Inuit and colonial histories, the focus is on the ingenuity of Inuit making as a form of ecotechnology born of symbiotic human and animal working relationships. These objects and documentation encourage exploration of the distinct perspective of Nunavik makers navigating a changing world within increasing colonial encroachment. The exhibition also features support materials from Nunavut artists. Presented together, these works offer an expansion of knowledge about lesser known histories of Northern Quebec from the mid-twentieth century to today.

Beginning with some of La Guilde’s first actions, acquisitions, and publications from the region, this exhibition explores the profound connection between animals and human life in Nunavik. Through representations of animal life and Inuit ecotechnology and emphasis on cohabitation and inter-species influence, this selection serves as an art-historical examination of how rapidly technological change impacted human relationships with other members of the living world in Nunavik during the Contact period; and how that influence is experienced today.

ᐃᓕᓴᑦᑕᐅᒋᐊᓕᒃ -Ilisattaugialik: Something That Needs to be Learned , presented in the context of the exhibitions of Thomas Whiteley, QAMUTIK and Mary Paningajak, Pride and Joy respectively, is also presented in collaboration with Festival Internationale des Peuples autochtones.

Vernissage : Thursday July 30, 5:30 p.m.

About Land inSights

LAND InSIGHTS is the driving force behind the Montreal International First Peoples Festival, a multidisciplinary artistic and cultural event that makes Montreal the nerve centre of Indigenous creativity from the three Americas for ten days in August. Three strategic objectives were set upon their foundation in 1990: create a major First Nations festival in Montreal, commemorate and remember the Great Peace of Montreal 1701 upon its tricentennial, and secure a permanent home for First Cultures in Québec’s metropolis. Mission: Link the artistic and cultural renaissance of First Peoples to the cultural dynamics of a major metropolis within a sustainable development perspective based on friendship between peoples, diversity of sources of expression as a collective cultural wealth to share and recognition of the specificity of First Nations.