“What ceremony would you like to perform to open the exhibition?”
Inuit have created a modern ceremony that suits Western institutional special occasions and honours Inuit elders: lighting a qulliq—a traditional oil lamp, usually made from soapstone, filled with oil and lit with a long horizontal wick made from the cotton of tundra plants. The practice is soothing and teaches people about the traditional hearth of Inuit households, our source of light and warmth. That’s probably what the gallery representatives were thinking of when they asked the question—or prayers or smudging, along the lines of the practices of other Indigenous cultures.
