**GAUGE. Film Loop. 2013 - 2015\.** 

  
Created on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, _Gauge_ employs and investigates the natural forces of time, extreme temperatures and the ever-moving environment to dictate the process of painting on a grand scale.

  
Monumental ice walls appear to emerge out of the frozen ocean, due to the rise and fall of the tide beneath the ice which moves upwards of ten metres on a twelve-hour cycle. Three artists use natural food colouring and burnt cow bone for black, to mark the temporary ice walls. Using fire extinguishers and paint sprayers, the artists must work parallel to the tide, as the frozen floor on which they stand collapses and shifts.

  
The short-lived works are subject to friction, ocean and temperature, which quickly erase the paintings, washing the images from memory, back into the Arctic Ocean.

  
**A collaboration by:**

**Sarah McNair-Landry - Iqaluit, Canada, Danny Osborne - Iqaluit, Canada, Raven Chacon - Albuquerque, USA, Erik Boomer - Iqaluit, Canada, Eric McNair-Landry - Yellowknife, Canada, Alexa Hatanaka - Toronto, Canada, Patrick Thompson - Ottawa,Canada**

  

Gauge

 the long cut 

Site specific installation at Global Pathways School, Chettypalayam India with Alexa Hatanaka

Kollam Chettypalayam

**_Sinaaqpagiaqtuut/The Long-Cut_** is a two-part procession that begins in Kinngait, Cape Dorset, NU, and continues in Toronto, culminating in an exhibition at 259 Lake Shore Blvd East. Collaborative works by youth participants are inspired by Kinngait-Toronto connections and look to the ways these distant places are tethered through waterways, art markets, artistic collaborations, and the night sky. 

In [Kinngait, the procession](https://www.instagram.com/p/B04D55Hg7BO/) involved community members celebrating the beginning of the new _Lands and Community Leadership program_, an EOI and the Cape Dorset Education Authority initiative, made possible by EOI’s collaborative youth-engaged artwork[ _Future Snowmachines in Kinngait_](http://artmatters.ca/wp/2017/09/buy-sculpture-buy-snowmobile/). In Toronto the procession performance is a reflective walk along the lakeshore, nuanced by shared memories held by the performers and the creation of new memories in real time, at points relating to places along the route, e.g. the EOI 2017 mural in Coronation Park, “_Avatittinnik Kamatsiarniq”._ 

Members of the public are invited to witness the performance and are welcome to respectfully follow behind the procession, while reflecting on their own relationship to place.

_—_

**Performing in Toronto, Artists:** Parr Josephee, Cie Taqiasuk, Saaki Nuna, David Pudlat, Janine Manning, Kunu Pudlat, Kevin Allooloo, Salomonie Ashoona, Oasis Skateboard Factory Fall 2019 Cohort, Ooloosie Ashevak, and PA System (Alexa Hatanaka and Patrick Thompson)

**Sinaaqpagiaqtuut/ The Long-Cut Contributors:** Embassy of Imagination 2019 participants, Parr Josephee, Cie Taqiasuk, Iqaluk Ainalik, Saaki Nuna, Moe Kelly, David Pudlat, Annie Oshutsiaq, Christine Adamie, Janine Manning, Kunu Pudlat, Kevin Allooloo and Salomonie Ashoona, [Oasis Skateboard Factory 2019 Fall Cohort](https://www.instagram.com/oasisskateboardfactory/), Makoto Aoki Barrett, Moises Frank, Brandon Webster, Ooloosie Ashevak, Mathew Nuqingaq, Jamasee Pitseolak, Pitseolak Pootoogook, Evie Kelly, Leah Mersky, Jason Kenemy, Natalie Baird x Jonny Lush and the Pang Photo Club

—

_Sinaaqpagiaqtuut/The Long-Cut_ is a project by [Embassy of Imagination](http://www.embassyofimagination.com/), produced by [PA System](http://www.pasystem.org/). It is co-commissioned and co-presented by The Bentway and the Toronto Biennial of Art as part of the latter's inaugural event, running from September 21 – December 1, 2019\. 

_Sinaaqpagiaqtuut/The Long-Cut is made possible by the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Cape Dorset District Education Authority, Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Canada House, British Museum, Ontario Arts Council, The Government of Nunavut, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, TakingITGlobal and XYZ STORAGE._

View fullsize

  

Sinaaqpagiaqtuut/The Long-Cut.

A selection of paintings created on paper focusing on Canada, Land, Borders and Movement. Works began without prior sketches or preplanning other than a series of meditations and journal entries as brainstorms loosely focusing on the media, migration, transience and transportation.

Canada, Land, Borders and Movement (Series)

 MORE INFORMATION ABOUT PROJECT AND IMAGES:

  
<http://www.pasystem.org/shortcutlongcut>

  
_Do you want to take the short-cut or the long-cut?_ is part of an ongoing collection of works about land: human use and relationship to land, places of shared experience and memory, complex and conflicting societal relationships to resource exploitation and industry, ideas of development, commons, nations, rights, and the experience of snow and ice as land. 

  
The serier of works included here are created using rare earth magnets and iron dust collected from Mary River Mine in Nunavut. Baffinland’s Mary River Mine site on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, is one of the most northern mines in the world. It has among the richest iron ore deposits ever discovered, consisting of nine-plus high-grade iron ore deposits that can be mined, crushed, and screened into marketable products.

  
The thinking behind the artwork work has been percolating and mind-mapped over the past ten years, as personal understandings of cold, land, and ways of life have grown from cherished time spent in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homeland in the Canadian arctic) creating collaborative and community art projects, primarily their ongoing project with Kinngait youth, _Embassy of Imagination._

  
<www.embassyofimagination.com>

  

 Do you want to take the short-cut or the long-cut?  

**_LINK TO MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PROJECT :_** 

  
<http://www.pasystem.org/towards-something-new-and-beautiful-future-snowmachines-in-kinngait->

  
1**_Towards Something New and Beautiful + Future Snowmachines in Kinngait,_ an installation for _Every. Now. Then._ at the Art Gallery of Ontario curated by Andrew Hunter (the AGO’s Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art) with Quill Christie-Peters (artist and youth educator), Anique Jordan (artist, educator and activist) and Laura Robb (AGO Interpretive Planner).**

  
<http://canadianart.ca/reviews/everybody-talking-every-now/>

  
<http://designlinesmagazine.com/pa-system/>

  
Our installation includes work that we have done collaboratively, under Alexa Hatanaka and Patrick Thompson's collective name PA System, and work that we have done collaboratively with our best friends, the youth that we work with in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), as Embassy of Imagination. We have work in two sites at the gallery as part of this exhibition: the window to the left of the main entrance on Dundas st. and in the 4th floor gallery.

  
_Towards Something New and Beautiful + Future Snowmachines in Kinngait,_ features collaborative works by Christine Adamie, Lachaolasie Akesuk, Moe Kelly, David Pudlat and Nathan Adla. Together, we have created sculptures of snowmobiles cast from aluminum from the remains of their old school (<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/cape-dorset-arson-reaction-1.3773094>). A limited edition of these aluminum-cast sculptures are available for purchase to fund a locally-run Elders and youth land-trip program in Kinngait. Funds from the sales of our works as PA System will support future Embassy of Imagination projects for the youth of Kinngait. 

Towards Something New and Beautiful + Future Snowmachines in Kinngait

Created on site at the university of King Mongkut Institute of Technology, Bangkok sculpture department and cast by Fine Art Cast, Thailand. Allakariallak’s parka, harpoon, rope, kamik, pants and hair are created from textures intentionally sourced from materials not found in Nunavik but from far away tropical lands.

  
Textures of coral,durian , jack fruit, sugar cane, sea shells and other materials come together to tell a story about the journey of how Allakariallak’s image and legacy has travelled far beyond his home to parts unknown.

  
In the summer 2020 after collaborating on a mural with Inukjuak based artist Sarah-Lisa I was asked by the Inukjuak town council to create a monument in bronze celebrating the worlds first ever ‘documentary’ film for its 100 year anniversary. Although Nanook Of The North has not escaped it’s fair share of criticism the community of Inukjuak in Nunavik proudly celebrates the legacy and life of Allakariallak who the film is based upon.

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Patrick Thompson