Having ventured to a whaling camp off the Arctic coast to observe a beluga hunt, a Dene-Inuvialuit artist Reneltta Arluk created Anticipation – a new performance art piece that examines the impacts of climate change on Northern peoples and explores the artist’s cultural identity. Developed with guidance from Calgary-based indigenous artist Terrance Houle, Anticipation is named after the draining, mundane and agitating act of waiting involved in the whale hunt.

“The whole existence of the camp is the anticipation of whale. People are smoking their cigarettes and drinking their coffee and listening to the radio and looking at the water and the weather – is there a fog coming in? – and then they’re going out for whale. Then they’re done, and all of us are just waiting, anticipating the call of ‘We’ve got a whale.’ Then it’s more cigarettes, more coffee, and then they’ve got the whale and it’s the anticipation of the whale coming.” (from Reneltta Arluk’s interview to the Northern Journal. August 12, 2013)

From the Northwest Territories, Reneltta Arluk is of Inuvialuit/Dene descent. Raised by her grandparents on the trap-line until school age, Reneltta traveled with them across the north. Remaining nomadic, she continues to tour across Canada & internationally as an actor/writer. Reneltta has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Acting degree from the University of Alberta and published her first book Thoughts and Other Human Tendencies (BookLand Press) in 2012.

Terrance Houle is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary media artist and a member of the Blood Tribe. A BFA graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design, Houle utilizes performance, photography, video/film, music and painting into his practice. His work has been exhibited across Canada, parts of the United States, Australia, Europe and England. Houle is a founding member of Indigeneity Artist Collective Society.