Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory is a Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller and writer. She is known for performing uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance. She performs internationally, collaborates with other artists and is a fierce advocate for Inuit artists.

Anaanagalu ullut tamaat oqaloqatigiittarpugut.
I speak to my mother everyday. Here I am with her as I breastfeed my youngest child.
Photo by Sweetmoon Photography.

I have been privileged to work on creating an artistic practise that is centred on collaboration, a connection between my ancestors and my children and on my family life. I have been lucky to acknowledged in the way I have been and I’m ever so grateful to be surrounded by those I love.

Laakkuluk
Butchering a seal at the opening of Tunirrusiangit,
a retrospective exhibition of Kenojuaq Ashevak and Tim Pitseolak at the Art Gallery of Ontario

For me uaajeerneq is a deeply personal and cultural challenge to find true expressions of oneself in an effort to decolonize. It is a fearsome, sexy clown act that comes from precolonial and postcolonial Greenland – my motherland. It is an idiosyncratic study of boundaries for both performers and audiences, a celebration of body and flesh, a loving and respectful exploration of humanity and ferocious call to action. It is a performance that was handed down to me from my mother and other Inuit activist artists from Greenland’s movement to self government in the 1970s. Uaajeerneq is the cornerstone of my artistic practise – it gives me fodder to expand on, as well as confidence as an Inuk woman.

Laakkuluk

Awards

  • Winner of the 2021 Sobey Art Award
  • 2020 Inaugural winner of Sinchi Indigenous Art Award (individual)
  • Best performer 2018, Toronto Theatre Critics Association (individual)
  • Dora Mavor Moore Award 2018 for Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools (group)
  • Co-winner Most Outstanding New Play 2018
  • Inaugural winner of 2018 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Prize (individual)
  • Recipient of 2017 Indigenous Art Award (individual)
  • Co-winner of 2016 Arctic Inspiration Prize for the Qaggiq Project (group)

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