A PLACE AND TIME TO BECOME WISE – Art Exhibit

Rivalry Projects is pleased to present A Place and Time to Become Wise, the gallery’s first exhibition of drawings by Qavavau Manumie. The exhibition will be on view from November 6 through December 18, 2026.

Bringing together original drawings spanning two decades, A Place and Time to Become Wise offers an introduction to one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Inuit art. Internationally recognized for his printmaking, Manumie is an equally accomplished draftsman, creating imaginative drawings that move fluidly between observation and invention. He utilizes graphite, ink, and colored pencil to render people, animals, and landscapes from a world where transformation is entirely natural, and everyday life unfolds alongside the extraordinary. 

Central to the exhibition are Manumie’s recurring depictions of the ‘Inuralaat’, a race of small people who are said to live mostly unnoticed alongside other humans in the Arctic. Born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1958 and raised in Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Manumie grew up listening to his father’s stories of the Inuralaat, who were described as mysterious tricksters or, at times, protectors that shed light on human dependencies in the face of forces before and beyond us.  Appearing alongside animals, tools, and the rhythms of daily life, these figures inhabit drawings that seem to begin in the middle of a story. In some works, the Inuralaat are freeing whales caught in nets, stealing a hunter’s harpoon, or riding on the backs of animals, to name a few. Rather than illustrating a single narrative in his works, Manumie’s compositions invite viewers into a world shaped by memory, humor, lived experience, and imagination.

Reflecting on his practice, Manumie has said, “I like to draw animals, and images of people, sometimes combined. I enjoy the animals and the land, and I take what I see there to my drawings.” That direct relationship between observation and imagination runs throughout the exhibition, where familiar landscapes and creatures become sites of transformation, curiosity, and wonder.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Trotter&Sholer, New York, and Dorset Fine Arts, Toronto.