URL
Tarriaksuk Artist-run Video Centre
in Igloolik,
NWT,  (Soon to be Nunavut)
Canada
 
http://www.isuma.ca
Email:
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Igloolik Isuma Productions
and
Tarriaksuk Video Centre
 
Tel: 867-934-8809
Fax: 867-934-8700
 
Please visit the website for more information and to help support their work in
any way you can.
 
Tarriaksuk Video Centre in Igloolik, Northwest Territories,
is Canada's first artist-run media centre located in a remote
Inuit community.
 
Traditional culture and language are still very much alive in
Igloolik, even as Inuit adapt to the growing influence of
southern technology and lifestyle. The main challenge of the
next generation is to preserve a distinct language and culture
while integrating the community into modern Canadian and
worldwide society.
 
In this context the mandate of Tarriaksuk
Video Centre is to meet an important need no other
Canadian electronic media organization is currently
addressing:
 
To encourage and support creation of indigenous,
community-based, Inuit-style artistic media productions
that serve the overall objectives of Inuit
self-representation and cultural / linguistic preservation.
 
While this mandate reflects an artistic objective - promoting
artistic media practices that reflect Inuit values rather than
southern models - it cannot be separated from wider political
objectives. Inuit are among the world's most caricatured and
misrepresented people, through images produced by
foreigners who for the most part don't speak the language or
understand the culture.
 
Tarriaksuk Video Centre hopes to balance
destructive stereotypes by encouraging
Inuit-style media production, using modern
technologies of self-expression and
self-representation for the benefit of Inuit communities.
 
Our mandate is expressed through the following objectives
and activities:
 
- to make professional-quality video production
equipment available in Igloolik to artists and other
community members at low cost;
 
- to offer training and support services to Inuit wanting to
learn media production skills;
 
- to assist both new and experienced producers in
development, financing, production and distribution of
media productions;
 
- to encourage media production by groups with special
concerns, such as Igloolik's Arnait Ikajurtigiit (Women's
Video Workshop);
 
- to provide an alternative, grass roots, artist-based
model for Inuit media production, distinct from the
southern film/TV model promoted by mainstream
organizations.
 
- to create an Inuit-style media organization controlled by
Inuit and operating by Inuit values: community-based,
non-hierarchical, consensual and collectively respectful
of local needs.
 
Following this mandate Tarriaksuk Video Centre is organized
and operated by an Inuit way of doing things. This requires
leadership and decision-making by consensus, with an open
membership policy which invites the widest possible
community support.
 
For Inuit there is no necessary separation between art and daily life:
everyone in the community recognizes the practical
importance of recording and expressing Inuit values through art-making.
These values are centered on respect for the knowledge and
experience of Elders. Tarriaksuk Video Centre has several
Elders involved in our activities who insure that our mandate
meets the overall needs of the community and culture.
 
Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. was founded in 1988 by
former employees of Inuit Broadcasting Corporation,
seeking more independence, opportunity and Inuit control
over Inuktitut television.
 
Isuma's mission is to create skilled jobs and sustainable
economic development for Inuit in Igloolik and Nunavut by
producing independent professional media products from
an Inuit point of view.
 
Our programs are designed to preserve, enhance and
represent Inuit culture to Inuit and non-Inuit audiences
worldwide, with the highest artistic qualities of production
and entertainment in our own language and style.
By doing this we hope to advance Inuit objectives in
several areas at the same time: culture, language,
contemporary art, economic development and politics, to
enable Inuit to gain more control over our land and future,
and over the ways Inuit are represented in worldwide
media.
 
= = = = = = = = =
 
'We the elders of Igloolik together support
Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. for their idea
in making video in Inuktitut that will go on TV.
We believe these video programs are for our future
generation.
 
They will also be used for education to Inuit and to
the outside world. We want our culture to be
understood correctly and these programs to be told and made by
Inuit.'
 
Rosey Iqalijuk, Martha Nashook, Mary Qutiq,
Mark Ijjangiaq, Noah Piugatuk, Rachel Uyarasuk, George
Aggiaq
(translated from the Inuktitut)
= = = = = =
 
:-) :-) Message Ends; Signature File Begins (-: (-:
CAUTIONS, Disclaimers & NOTE TO EDITORS :-
Because of the nature of email please check ALL sources & subjects.
Original material (c) copyright 1998 G.A.Lessard
& may be quoted, resent, reproduced, stored or
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These materials may not be distributed for other
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107,
this material is distributed without profit or payment
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.
 
          George Lessard, Media Activist
           Community Communication Arts,
         Training, Management & Mentoring
       http://members.tripod.com/~media002/
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It doesn't bother me and I suggest that if it bothers you
- that's why God (or Bill Gates)
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                 - 30 -
 
----
Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite