Takkuuk

Takkuuk runs at Studio Ulster from Wednesday 28 to Saturday 31 October, as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. It's an immersive arts experience that takes about an hour and ten minutes to get through, and it's free to see.

The title comes from the Inuktitut word for 'look closely', and that's a good way to think about it. It's a collaboration between the electronic duo BICEP, visual artist Zak Norman and filmmaker Charlie Miller, who worked with seven Indigenous collaborators across Greenland and Sápmi as part of the EarthSonic initiative. Together they used specially built infrared cameras to film Arctic landscapes, turning them into something strange and otherworldly, and set the whole thing to a BICEP soundtrack.

There's a clear thread running through it: holding on to language, land and identity in a world that's changing fast. DJ Mag described it as capturing the seismic shifts Arctic communities have gone through and the erosion of their ancient cultures. BICEP's Peder Niilas spoke about how the project normalises working with Indigenous artists rather than exoticising them. It's one of the first pieces in the new immersive arts strand of the festival's 64th edition, which runs from 14 October to 8 November across more than 30 venues. Studio Ulster, where this one sits, is billed as the world's most advanced virtual production facility, so it's a fitting place for a piece that relies on this kind of tech.

It runs on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 at 5pm and 7pm; Friday 30 at 3pm, 5pm and 7pm; and Saturday 31 at 11am, 1pm and 3pm. Tickets are free through the Belfast International Arts Festival, and the work contains strobing sequences.