https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-help-artcirq-rebuild-the-blackbox

In the early morning of February 12th, 2025, a fire broke out in the Artcirq Black Box and Igloolik Kipsigak Arena. The fire burned until late in the day, leaving the Black Box in ashes and the arena gutted.

The Artcirq Blackbox is a training, performance, and cultural centre in Igloolik, Nunavut and operated by Artcirq, the Igloolik based Inuit Performance Collective. Artcirq started its operation in the summer of 1998 in Igloolik. It was created by a of young people from Igloolik and the South, dreaming of a brighter future together and working to help lower youth suicide rates in their community. At that time, very few possibilities were given to young people to express themselves in the community; there was no dedicated space for youth to regroup, just an old community hall, and an empty swimming pool. Since then, we have come a long way. In 2009, Artcirq built its own training and performing space, the Artcirq Blackbox, with the full support of Igloolik Hamlet, in the Kipsigak arena. Over the past 16 years, the Artcirq crew has worked hard to manage and offer a safe space for youth in Igloolik, create and present shows and music performances, give workshops, pass on traditional knowledge to the younger generations, and create year long, regular employment in a meaningful way. Since the facility opened in 2009, over 150 professional artists have come to perform from all over the world in our Black Box. It has become a unique performing arts center in Nunavut, mixing modern art practices and Inuit traditional culture. The Black Box has generated many talented Inuit artists, musicians, actors, and circus performers who have trained and grown up with the programs offered. There is no other space like the Black Box in Nunavut; this space is an inspiration for other communities, showing them that it is possible to have a space dedicated to Arts and Inuit culture in Nunavut.

Today, we are asking for your support. Everything physical that has been built over the past 16 years-the circus equipment, costumes, musical instruments-everything is gone. As a hub for musicians in the community, many of the musicians kept their personal instruments in the Black Box which were also destroyed in the fire.

We are starting this fundraising campaign, firstly for immediate emergency support to replace artists’ personal instruments and equipment such as guitars and amps. Any additional funding will go towards rebuilding everything that had been created over the past decade and a half, allowing us to dream of what is possible and create an even brighter safe space for culture and arts in our community.

This rebuilding will take several years, and we will need all the support we can get. Construction materials can only be delivered by ocean freights, with limited space, in August of each year, and the extended winter weather conditions that follow, including temperatures lower than -60° C, often delays construction. These factors, among others, mean that building in the North faces many barriers and roadblocks. We hope that with the support of our community, and the many people we have connected with and touched in the last decades, that this will be the beginning of a beautiful path forward.

Any amount that you can give, or people that you can share this campaign with, will help us to support our local artists in this difficult time and to work towards rebirthing a new and beautiful space for youth, the arts, and Inuit culture in Igloolik and Nunavut. Qujannamiik, thank you, and all of the love in this difficult time.