As the exclusive artist for Polar Nation, I wanted to create a piece that enveloped the ideas behind Project Nanuk. Uki aims to bring awareness to the endangerment of polar bears due to climate change. To communicate this to my audience, the piece as well as its merchandise features a black background to represent the lurking extinction. I chose to work on a singular subject to reiterate the scarcity of the population.
The preservation of wildlife has been an interest of mine and has been recently informing my practice as an artist. This was a great opportunity to take what I was working on in my In Peril series and implement that into Uki but bring actual change.
Project Nanuk has been a platform for which my artistry has found a purpose; specifically, raise awareness for the endangerment of species due to the loss of their habitats. Much of my research prior to Project Nanuk surrounded this topic which I found that habitat destruction is a significant issue related to specie extinction. This campaign has allowed me to reach a broader audience with these concerns and giving people a chance to help. Although we cannot reverse the damage that has been done; Project Nanuk aims to bring a better future.
I illustrated Uki as a polar bear cub because it is about sparing the young generation for them to rebuild their population. I chose the name Uki because in Inuit it means “survivor” and our campaign is about the conservation of the polar bears and their sea ice home.