“ᐃᕐᑭᐊᒻᒥᒐᕐᒃ | BAIT | APPÂT at SBC Gallery in Montreal
Couzyn van Heuvelen’s Avataq, 2016, breathe, he tells me. Made like party balloons from silvery oval Mylar sheets filled with helium, 12 sway in sync like bodies on a dance floor. Close inspection reveals flipper limbs and a sealskin texture screen-printed across their backs. An avataq is an Inuit hunting tool but a much less fragile balloon made from a whole sealskin inflated by a hunter’s breath. Attached to a harpoon line, the hunter’s avataq is used to track a marine animal once struck. Visiting SBC Gallery in Montreal on a desolate afternoon during the second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks—my own breath warming the air between my face and mask—I meet van Heuvelen’s hovering pod, part of his playful travelling exhibition, “ᐃᕐᑭᐊᒻᒥᒐᕐᒃ | BAIT | APPÂT.” Walking in on these 12 felt like stumbling into the best dancers at a house party. Van Heuvelen’s avataqs are celebrations of Inuit hunting practices and food sovereignty. As the artist explains it, they are also bait for more meaningful conversations about the seal hunt, international sealskin bans and the decimating effects of such bans on Inuit livelihoods.
Click through to read article in full: https://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/couzyn-van-heuvelen