Theresie Tungilik

Advisor – Arts & Traditional Economy - Government of Nunavut
Inuit

Hailing from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Theresie Tungilik is an artist and an Advisor for the Government of Nunavut in the department of Arts and Traditional Economy since 2003. Marc, Theresie’s father was a carver who made work out of soapstone, narwal tusks, caribou antlers and polar bear teeth. His carvings can be found in private collections and museum collections.  In Theresie’s own artistic practice, she creates wall hangings that depict the lives of Inuit people. Some of the supplies used in her wall hangings include thread, wool, animal skins, cloth and her own hair. Alongside this, she also started the Inuit Art Society and showed Nunavut art and fashions at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. She is also the National Vice-President of CARFAC and in 2021 she was appointed to the board of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Indigenous Advisory Committee for Qaumajuq, the WAG’s new Inuit Art Centre.

She is passionate about the protection of Inuit art, and is inspired to help other Inuit artists. Since her father’s passing in 1986, she has been the beneficiary of his artwork, and even with the sale of his artwork throughout Canada and globally she has not received a nickel for the sales. Because of this she has been fighting for the Artist’s Resale Right, where the artist or their estate would receive a cut of the sale of a resold piece of art.