Inukshuk Two

Roy Pearce

29 January - 5 March 2011

Roy Pearce built Inukshuk at x-church last year. His vast bamboo installation filled the cavernous church and prompted us to challenge him to build Inukshuk Two with the same volume of material but at the gallery, a much smaller space. Navigation of Inukshuk prompted all kinds of improvised choreography. It will be interesting to see how people engage with what is, inevitably, a much denser structure.

The Inuit build an inukshuk to send a message, often about food, survival. Inuksuit (plural) are human marks on a cold and forbidding Arctic landscape. By building his structure in winter in what is undoubtedly a cold and forbidding building Roy sent out his own survival message. Visitors clambering mentally and physically through the canes were compelled to question why anyone would give so much time and energy to such a project. The content of his message was not as primary as food but in placing his audience somewhere between two meanings of the word inukshuk, “someone was here” and “you are on the right path” he succeeded in saying something valuable about the human condition.

Back