Indigenous Art Promotes Resilience to Climate Change

Indigenous art can play a role in transmitting environmental knowledge between generations and across cultures, according to an article published recently in the journal Ecology and Society. Inuit people in northern Canada produce art that conveys their perceptions of environmental change to younger generations within their community and to the wider world

Authors Kaitlyn Rathwell and Derek Armitage interviewed 30 professional artists in the towns of Pangnirtung and Cape Dorset, both towns in Baffin Island in northern Canada where the decline of sea ice and changing seasons impact traditional hunting and food security. They selected the towns, both former trading posts for the Hudson Bay Company, for their “legacy of artmaking,” including textiles, carving, and printmaking. Cape Dorset is known as the “Capital of Inuit Art,” and carvers there use power tools on their work.

The authors find that the art-making provides a context that bring together the environmental knowledge of the elders and the skills of artists of different generations.

The authors conclude that Inuit in both communities use art to provide livelihoods and to strengthen their communities. They show that the process of making art itself reinforces social ties and cultural understandings. Moreover, the techniques used in the art support not only the production of items for sale, but also maintain the traditional crafts, such as kamik or hand-sewn sealskin boots, which are used on hunting trips. In these ways, the art contributes to the resilience of an indigenous culture in a changing environment.

Indigenous art promotes resilience to climate change