[BCMA] October 21st - Souls Ignited: Empowering the Voices of Our Ancestors - Reception

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

The Vancouver Maritime Museum is excited to announce on Friday October 21st 2022 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, we will be hosting the reception for Souls Ignited: Empowering the Voices of Our Ancestors.

Registration is required, but admission is free. There will be compliments food and drink and time to mingle with the artist and staff. Click here to reserve your spot<https://vanmaritime.zaui.net/booking/web/#/members/activity/171?date=2022-10-21>

Resilient. Empowered. Beautiful.


Souls Ignited is a celebration of 20 intimate portraits from Inuk photographer Cora DeVos’s continuous and multi-year project The Gold Series. Self-love and the expression of Inuit culture and tattoos are at the heart of this exhibition, so much so that DeVos travelled across Canada visiting Taloyoak, Cambridge Bay, Ottawa, and Vermillion to take photographs of Inuk women and their markings.  0With the art of tattooing being stolen from Inuit culture through residential schools and colonization, DeVos advocates that it’s time to celebrate women and their reclaimed skin. Dressed in gold dust, this group of multi-generational mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends are celebration personified. Each woman’s tattoo tells a story of her life and is a symbol of her culture and identity. Testimonies from many of the women are coupled with their photographs, providing visual and written evidence of their resiliency, power, and beauty. Gold was chosen as the color of this celebration, because gold is almost as beautiful as the women’s markings.


Cora DeVos is a self-taught photographer originally from Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), NU and currently based in Vermilion, AB. DeVos has been specializing in portraiture, event and wedding photography under the name Little Inuk Photography, since 2009.


DeVos primarily photographs women, finding empowerment through her lens-based practice and working with clients to bring out their self-confidence. She also works to capture Indigenous and Inuit celebrations as well as cultural activities. As she explains, “Photography has taken me on a journey and I have learned so much about myself, that I don’t think I would have come to realize if it weren’t for my craft.” DeVos was the main photographer on the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project, this project aims to bring about the cultural continuance of female Inuit tattooing. “When I look back through the photos, I see the reaction that the women have when they see their new facial tattoos [tunniit], and I can see their souls light up,” she explains. “The photography becomes part of the story.”

DeVos’ work has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers. Her photography is featured heavily in the book Reawakening Our Ancestor’s Lines (2017), which documents the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project and the process of reclaiming a nearly lost art form. DeVos even has pieces in museums across the globe from Montreal, Peru, Finland and Poland. DeVos’ Gold Series will be featured in Chatelaine magazine’s November 2022 issue.


We are also lucky and thankful to Cloverdale Paint, for sponsoring this exhibition.

For more information or details, please contact
Mary Elizabeth Harrison
Curator
Vancouver Maritime Museum
curator at vanmaritime.com<mailto:curator at vanmaritime.com>
604-257-8309
1905 Ogden Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V6J 1A3
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