asinnajaq .
asinnajaq (they) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is grounded in observation, attentiveness, and the transmission of knowledge across generations. Guided by family lineages of curiosity, ingenuity, and playfulness, their current work explores relationships to material culture and the ways contemporary artistic practice can contribute to existing knowledge systems. They draw inspiration from objects made by family members and ancestors, including baskets, sleds, and sewn garments, to investigate how inherited forms can be reinterpreted as living structures capable of transformation, adaptation, and personal expression.
Across their practice, making becomes a means of participating in ongoing lineages of knowledge, care, and creativity. asinnajaq examines how material traditions can carry memory forward while creating space for new conversations between past, present, and future.
Biography
asinnajaq has an interdisciplinary practice spanning from curating to writing, directing films to making, and so on. They have been exhibited across Canada and internationally, and have notably participated as a curator in the new presentation of the Inuit art collection of the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (2024), as well as the WAG-Qaumajuq Inuit Art Centre's inaugural exhibition in Winnipeg (2021), and the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Italy (2019). They have been awarded the Pierre-Ayot Prize from the city of Montreal and the AGAC (2025), as well as the New Generation Photography Award from the National Gallery of Canada (2025), and were one of the recipients of the Sobey Art Award (2020). They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a film major from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (2016).
Recent exhibitions
| 2026 | Indian Theater, group exhibition, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, US Love Medicine, group exhibition, McKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, CA Qillaniq, group exhibition, National Art Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, US |
| 2025 | la clarté creuse les montagnes, group exhibition, Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, CA The Structure of Smoke, group exhibition, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, CA New Generation Photography Award, recipient, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA |
| 2024 | femmes volcans forêts torrents, group exhibition, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, CA ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik : essence de la vie, permanent exhibition of the Inuit art collection, Pavillon Hornstein, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, CA |
| 2022 | with the seasons, group exhibition, McClure Gallery, Centre des arts visuels, Montréal, CA what sustains us, group exhibition, McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, CA |
| 2021 | INUA, opening exhibition, Winnipeg Art Gallery–Qaumajuq, Manitoba, CA |