Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment
January 27 - May 13, 2007
The Dickey Center’s Institute of Arctic Studies and the Hood Museum of Art
have organized the exhibition Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing
Environment as part of Dartmouth College’s overall initiative for the
International Polar Year, Project 160:Arctic Change: An Interdisciplinary
Dialog Between the Academy, Northern Peoples, and Policy Makers. Thin Ice
explores the lives of the Inuit people of the Arctic and their intimate
relation to ice, weather, climate, nature, and the many manifestations of the
Inuit concept of sila (universe, weather). The exhibition demonstrates how
these relationships are embodied in an understanding of weather and climate
that may be very different from our own or those of scientists and
policymakers. The Hood Museum collections contain nineteenth and early
twentieth-century objects that reveal Inuit involvement with their environment
through the practice of hunting. The Inuit, who live throughout the
northernmost regions of the North American continent and Greenland, developed
highly specialized hunting techniques to effectively harvest and make use of
animals and fish in one of the most demanding climates in the world. What makes
looking at these objects so invaluable is that they demonstrate the deep
involvement of the Inuit with their natural surroundings and with the seasonal
extremes of the Arctic region. While these objects convey much about the past
existence of Inuit people, they also have relevance for the present in that
they convey the basic connection of their culture to nature. The exhibition and
its accompanying catalogue shows the Hood collection through the lens of the
environmental conditions of Inuit life, its importance to their ways of life,
the change in living circumstances through contact with Western culture, and
the impact of climate change on their life today. The exhibition will stimulate
discussion on critical policy issues facing the northern regions. Can the
consequences of Arctic climate warming be anticipated so as to spur the
implementation of new policies that manage Arctic resources in a more
sustainable way for the benefit of all northern inhabitants? Without a global
climate dialogue involving indigenous perspectives and timely policy actions,
the future of the “Arctic” and perhaps the entire planet may truly be on thin
ice.
Curated by Nicole Stuckenberger, Institute of Arctic Studies Stefansson
Post-doctoral Fellow and Kathy Hart, Associate Director and Barbara C. and
Harvey P. Hood 1918 Curator of Academic Programming
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