Essay by Joshua Schipp, Class of 2009

Confrontations was created in 1986 by two Inuit artists, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk and Magdalene Ukpatiku. The composition depicts two Inuits being attacked, while on a hunting expedition, by bears, snake-lizards, and a spirit form that combines human, snake/lizard, and wolf characteristics. Inuit culture, very much like the cultures of indigenous peoples across the planet, is immersed directly within Nature, not apart from it. Hunting scenes, as depicted in Confrontations, are rendered through a myriad of artistic media by the Inuit people because they strike at the heart of Inuit culture: the inexplicable, yet absolutely essential, confrontations of humans and animals in the wild.

Within Inuit culture, it is well known that sometimes the hunters can become the hunted (as evidenced by Confrontations). Whether for sustenance, clothing, tools, or trading purposes, the Inuit culture is dependent for its survival upon the wild fauna of Northwestern Canada and the Arctic region. Either out of respect for Nature, or fear of it, renditions of the hunt and animals are frequently seen in Inuit art.

This collaborative piece originates from the Inuit community of Baker Lake, which is located near Canada's geographic center in the Northwest Territories. To best appreciate Inuit works such as Confrontations, it is essential to have an understanding of the environments from which these works originate. According to the Government of the Northwest Territories website: "[The Northwest Territories] is 1.17 million square kilometers of mountains, forests and tundra threaded by wild, clean rivers feeding thousands of pristine lakes.Nature is in balance here. You can view rare wildlife species, from white wolves to white whales.herds of bison, prowling bears, moose and caribou by the thousands" ("Explore").

Confrontations is an ideal piece to illustrate the artistic techniques employed by Inuit printmakers from the Baker Lake community. Vigorous activity, multiple characters, and flattened two-dimensional perspectives are used to depict Inuit myths and lore, rather than actual events. The Inuit artist uses the mundane (the hunt) to express the sacred (the duality of life and death).

Mamnguqsualuk and Ukpatiku worked on many other prints together in various co-operative studios in Baker Lake, such as Catching The Fish Mother, which depicts two Inuits catching anthropomorphized fish. These studios offered local artists the opportunity to share ideas, teach techniques, procure supplies, and ultimately market and sell their wares all across the world. The importance of printmaking for the Inuit people of Baker Lake cannot be overstated. Kyra Vladykov Fisher summarizes this point: "The history of printmaking in Baker Lake is also the history of a people going towards self-sufficiency and nationhood: 'a culture employing art unconsciously for identity while moving inevitably into the unknown'" (Fisher 192).