[Fall 2026]
Katherine Takpannie, Every Now and Then I Get a Feeling
By Julie Graff
SAW, Ottawa
20.02.2026 — 04.04.2026
[EXCERPT]
Every Now and Then I Get a Feeling, presented at the SAW artist-run centre, surveyed ten years of photographs by the Inuk artist Katherine Takpannie. Having grown up in Ottawa, where she still lives, Takpannie combines different approaches to capture the complexity of the Inuit experience in the urban environment. She mobilizes art practice as a healing process and to pinpoint responsibility for extractivist exploitation of the land and violence against women. In this sense, she has much in common with other contemporary photographers who are redefining visual representations of the Indigenous presence in the city, such as Barry Pottle, another Inuk who also lives in Ottawa and is known for his engagement with his community. Takpannie’s exhibition, presenting images dating from 2017 to 2025 covering a variety of themes, ended with a screening of Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk. I Am Alive (NFB, 2004), a documentary that complements her perspectives by adding those of eight Inuit teenagers on their daily life in Inuit Nunangat, in the Canadian Arctic.
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[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 133 – INTIMACIES ]
[ Complete article in digital version available here : Katherine Takpannie,Every Now and Then I Get a Feeling ]
Julie Graff is an independent researcher, cultural worker, and curator, based in Ottawa and Montreal. She holds a doctorate in art history and social anthropology and is interested in the decolonization of museums in Canada. Since 2022, she has been artistic director of Maison MONA, a non-profit organization devoted to the valorization of public art and heritage.