Still from Stitching My Landscape (2017); Video (6:10mins). Commissioned by Partners In Art for LandMarks2017/Repères2017. Curated by Tania Willard.
Stitching My Landscape by Inuvialuk artist Maureen Gruben is the artist’s first large-scale land artwork. Installed on April 23rd, 2017, 111 ice fishing holes are stitched with broadcloth across a 300 metre expanse in the arctic community of Tuktoyaktuk. The red cloth on snow/ice speaks to the artist’s memory of her brother harvesting seal and pulling fresh gut out taught against the ice. The process of rolling cloth from hole to hole, as captured in this film, is an act of endurance and of careful devotion as her body physically generates the familiar pattern both of raw stitching and the beautifully worked delta trim that adorns Inuvialuit drum dancing parkas. The work simultaneously evokes elements of Inuvialuit culture; the strength of family and community; and the potential for healing and being healed by the land.