This chapter describes Birds Carry the Sun to Birdland by Lucy Qinnuayuak, created in 1977, and measuring 38 by 47 cm. There is a tactile version of this drawing. It is labeled “3.” This chapter is one and a half minutes long. 

In this work, the sun is depicted as a charmingly irregular-shaped orange circle, held aloft in a yellow-green sky by nine birds. The colours are done with crayon, but the sun’s face is drawn in black ink, feminine eyes encircled by eyelashes gaze out at us, and her small mouth tilts to the right in a half smile. Her face has dotted lines across the cheeks, nose and forehead, in familiar designs of Inuit women’s tattoos. These black dotted lines also appear on the red, blue, green and black birds. 

Can feel the dotted patterns on the tactile version? 

Tattoos were opposed by Christian missionaries in the north for hundreds of years, something that Qinnuayuak, who lived between 1915 and 1982, would have experienced. They have had a revival recently, however, with many young Inuit women learning the techniques and designs of their ancestors. The directions of the birds, pointing east, west and north, create a symmetry to the drawings, and the black dots create kinship between the fowl and their precious cargo.  

Please move to the next stop, along the wall for 3 and a half metres, and turn to the left.