Norman Hallendy, who has had a thirty-year relationship with Inuit elders, will supervise the construction on campus of five inuksuit, traditional stone figures, and speak about the spiritual landscape of the Inuit. A variety of films and videos about and by Inuit, from the classic to the contemporary, will be shown, and Peggy Gale, a Toronto-based curator, will provide critical commentary. During the last several years, most of St. Lawrence University's festival of the arts programs have celebrated the culture and identity of various groups through art, literature, and performance. In each of the projects, art objects and artifacts were displayed, and human beings performed. On occasion, exhibition displays and performances may have inadvertently objectified and exoticized the subjects of inquiry and promoted over time a form of cultural tourism.
Any extant culture is an evolving, multi-faceted entity.
And any attempt to represent culture is, at best, a snapshot, freezing some part of the whole picture in time. But what is not framed can be equally illuminating, since the representation of culture is also a projection that may reveal as much about the representor. In this festival of the arts program, we look critically at the process of representation and ask participants, viewers, and audience members to reflect on the art and politics of exhibiting and performing culture.