Myth of the Tuniit

This is a particularly strong work by one of the most important graphic artists in Cape Dorset. Napachie Pootoogook was the daughter of Pitseolak Ashoona and mother of Annie Pootoogook, who is very well-known today in contemporary and Inuit art circles. Napachie, like her daughter, was renowned for producing 'documentary' work that captures the positive and negative aspects of cultural interactions with outsiders, but unlike her daughter, Napachie also made drawings based upon oral history and indirect memory�an example of which is Myth of the Tuniit. Tuniit were likely the ancient people who occupied the Arctic prior to the modern Inuit. Archaeologists call them the �Dorset� people, and suggest that they had vanished completely by about 1450. Presented by the Art Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.