Mapping the Multicoloured Inukshuk in Canada's Multicultural Landscape

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dc.contributor.advisorHudson, Anna
dc.contributor.authorHarris, Rachel
dc.date.accessioned2020-02-25T19:59:09Z
dc.date.available2020-02-25T19:59:09Z
dc.date.issued2009-08
dc.description.abstractMy paper is a study of the sixty year history of the inukshuk’s cultural appropriations from humanoid-rock-formation to Canadian-Nunavut-Olympics icon. It traces the inukshuk variant in Canadian visual culture from its Inuit source in southern Canada to its cultural appropriations in popular culture, state insignia and in the monuments and stone formations that thread the Canadian wilderness into an east to west tundra simulacra. It focuses on issues of cultural appropriation and Canadian identity representation, which are significant for current cultural property relations between nation-state, the Fourth World and the Olympics. Comparing the interrelationship between the references to Canada’s northern landscape in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics logo, known as Ilanaaq, and the Nunavut and Canadian flags’ foregrounds the complexity of the cultural property debate. I posit that the visual pairing of the inukshuk and the maple leaf in the design of Ilanaaq demonstrates how the idea of Canada-as-North has evolved into a multicultural tundra simulacrum. This evolution has occurred in tandem with official recognition of Inuit voice in the formation of Nunavut. I come to the assertion that in the image of Ilanaaq the essentialist division between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians nevertheless persists in an idea of Canada as multicultural nation. Unless Ilanaaq’s likeness to the Nunavut flag provides an alternative reading for the Canadian-Olympics icon as reapreappropriated symbol of Inuit self-representation, the VANOC logo is nothing more than a problematic form of Canadian identity representation.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.en_US
dc.identifier.citationHarris, Rachel (2009). Mapping the Mulitcoloured Inukshuk in Canada's Multicultural Landscape (Major Research Paper). Department of Art History. York University, Toronto, Canada.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/37023
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subjectInukshuken_US
dc.subjectCultural appropriationen_US
dc.subjectIlanaaqen_US
dc.subjectOlympicsen_US
dc.subjectOlympic Winter Games (21st : 2010 : Vancouver, B.C.)en_US
dc.subjectArts and society -- Canadaen_US
dc.subjectMulticulturalism -- Canadaen_US
dc.subjectArt (Appropriation)en_US
dc.titleMapping the Multicoloured Inukshuk in Canada's Multicultural Landscapeen_US
dc.typeMajor Research Paperen_US

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