This spring, Mimosa House will present Nuliaminik Neqilik (The Flesh of Wives), an exhibition of Greenlandic-Canadian Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson’s new and recent works. Nuliaminik Neqilik will be Laakkuluk’s first solo exhibition of visual work, which will subsequently tour to the Nuuk Art Museum, Greenland, and the SAW Centre, Canada. This exhibition is curated by Taqralik Partridge, an Inuk curator and artist known for her community- and family-based approach to working with Inuit and other circumpolar artists.
Nuliaminik Neqilik speaks to the current international discourse on Inuit identity, repatriation, and agency over belongings, bodies, and territories, making this an even more timely and urgent project as the world’s eyes are on Greenland and the circumpolar region. The artist and curator have described Nuliaminik Neqilik as a small revolutionary act, as it will be presented in a coloniser’s country and close to The British Museum, an institution whose history is bound up with colonial power and expansion. Bringing the exhibition to Nuuk will be a homecoming for the artist and her work, as her maternal family is originally from Maniitsoq, Greenland.
The exhibition’s title and central piece of work – a mixed media installation Nuliaminik Neqilik – comes from a Greenlandic story of Igimaarasussuaq, a cannibal who ate the flesh of his wives, and the revenge of his last wife Masaannaaq, who grew to an immense size. In this new work, Laakkuluk champions the voice of Masaannaaq as an emancipated protagonist. Colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and racism subjugate, dehumanise and exclude racialised women. In Nuliaminik Neqilik, Laakkuluk focuses on corpulence, body image and strength as a way to own space.
On loan from the National Gallery of Canada for the exhibition will be Nannuppugut!, which translates as “We killed a polar bear!”. This work takes its name from Laakkuluk’s family’s real-life encounter with a polar bear.
Laakkuluk Williamson, Nuliaminik Neqilik, 24th April – 27th June 2026, Mimosa House
Art Opening 23rd April 6PM-8PM & Performance at The British Museum 24th April 6:30PM
This exhibition was developed with the support of SAW’s Nordic Lab initiative, a research and production space in Ottawa, Canada, dedicated to artists from circumpolar nations.
About the artist
An internationally acclaimed Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) artist, Laakkuluk Williamson is the recipient of the inaugural 2018 Kenojuaq Ashevak Memorial Award, the 2021 Sobey Art Award and the 2024 University of Calgary Alumni Award, amongst many others. She is a performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller, and writer, widely recognized for her contemporary practice of uaajeerneq (Greenlandic mask dancing) and her collaborative approach to making art. Laakkuluk examines Inuit feminism, food systems, storytelling, climate change, humour, sexuality, language reclamation, Inuit sociopolitical circumstances, hidework and beading. Laakkuluk is a strong advocate for Inuit artists. She lives and works in Iqaluit, Nunavut.
