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Artist Statement
"For over a millennium, every spring, the Iñupiaq Natives of Northern Alaska have been camping on the shore-fast Arctic Ocean ice and traditionally hunting Bowhead whales, in small wood-framed rowing boats, covered with seal skins stitched together with caribou tendons.
"Since the 1970’s this subsistence hunt has been limited to an early quota, based on a whale population census. The bowhead whale population is growing. The Iñupiaq connection to the land, sea and natural resources is essential to the community sense of identity. Whaling is the foremost way where this people express their connection because of the communal nature of the hunt and the sharing of the whale. Hunting is vital not only to the body, but to the culture and its preservation. Knowing this, the Iñupiaq is taught not to deplete their renewable resources, but to treat the land as their garden. They are an example of a sustainable community.
"Now they are being threatened by climate change. Their garden is melting."
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