Indigenous Female Artists Create Meaningful Music Together

With a Canada Council grant, Leela Gilday was able to collaborate on a new piece with fellow prominent Indigenous female singer-songwriters Diyet and Elisapie Isaac.

Bringing Northern artists together

While artists in the North often wish to work together, physical distances between them can make collaboration difficult. The Arctic Inspiration Collaboration Project, or “Tseku,” provided an opportunity for three prominent singer-songwriters to collaborate. Through this project, Leela Gilday (Northwest Territories), Diyet (Yukon), and Elisapie Isaac (Nunavik, Quebec) came together to create a spectacular original piece for presentation at the 2019 Arctic Inspiration Prize ceremony. They also subsequently presented the piece at the Yukon Arts Centre.

Addressing contemporary Indigenous themes

This was the first time these three northern Indigenous artists had the opportunity to collaborate on new work and perform together. The project enabled them to share their northern perspectives while maintaining their unique stories and influences. The collaboration brought new life to some of the ideas each artist explores in their respective work and examined themes and issues such as reconciliation, language revitalization, climate change, youth well-being and community survival.