NIUGTAQ : Fractured Edge

SEARCH Human Well Being team co-chairs Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer and Dr. Jamie Donatuto co-produced an art piece that is now currently on display at the Surge: Mapping Transition, Displacement, and Agency in Times of Climate Change exhibit at the Museum of Northwest Art. Titled “Niugtaq : Fractured Edge,” images of the piece and its write-up follow:

“Adaptation, mitigation and resilience are big words. Complicated words. They have multiple meanings in English. Try translating the meaning into Yugtun (Yup’ik). Try translating them to me. I am nine. The closest term is pektayiinata. We are resilient. I want to play outside. Play for me is learning, aquilleq elitnarquq. Learning about the ways of my ancestors and how they moved in harmony with this land. Seasonal living. Hearing stories from my aunties. Squatting and bending to pick berries as a toddler. The gift of the fish, the birds, the seals. Our promise to be good stewards of this place, our home, their home. This is what I learn from my community. But others, far away, they don’t have these understandings, these relationships, this community. They are not connected. They don’t dance in harmony with nature, like I do. And they tell us our oceans are warming, our land is melting, our more-than-human relatives are dying. They want more details, more studies. But I can see that things are changing, I carry that understanding, and that burden.”

Artist: Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer

Scientist: Dr. Jamie Donatuto