LAUGRAND, Frédéric and Jarich OOSTEN, 2008 The Sea Woman: Sedna in Inuit Shamanism and Art in the Eastern Arctic, Fairbanks, University of Alaska Press, 152 pages.

The publication The Sea Woman exists because of Raymond Brousseau’s interest in Inuit art; so, although he is hardly mentioned in the book, this review will begin with him. Brousseau started collecting Inuit art in 1956 when he was only 18 and could ill afford such luxuries. But he continued to indulge his interest to the point that, at age 35, he found that it was really time to open his own gallery in Quebec City. As he puts it, his “addiction” to Inuit art grew worse because he now had opportunities to discover an ever-increasing number of exceptional works and to meet more people who shared his passion (Brousseau, pers. comm. 2009). The gallery expanded to include three separate locations and in 1998 was finally reorganised into a single building that included a gallery, a storeroom, and a non-profit museum, which operated without government support. Some 100,000 visitors have viewed the permanent and temporary exhibits. The museum has also sponsored travelling exhibits of the Brousseau collection outside the country and has published related catalogues. John R. Porter, director of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), was impressed by the development and success of Brousseau’s museum and exhibits. He made arrangements with the premier of Quebec and the president of Hydro-Quebec to purchase 50% of the museum and asked Brousseau to donate the other 50%. The MNBAQ received 2,635 original and important Inuit works of art and created a permanent gallery to exhibit about 300 exceptional sculptures that attest to some 50 years of dedication to collecting Inuit art. It was with the MNBAQ purchase and donation that the Musée d’art inuit Brousseau closed in 2003, and Raymond and Lyse Brousseau started doing travelling exhibits with their personnel collection, which they call “the second collection.” Lyse has some 30 years of experience as a museum designer and was formerly director of exhibits at the MNBAQ. She designed the Brousseau museum and was also invited to create the permanent Inuit gallery at the MNBAQ. Although the museum closed, and Raymond and Lyse have become involved in researching and organising travelling exhibits, the commercial gallery, Galerie Brousseau et Brousseau, whose management Brousseau’s son Jean-François took over a few years ago, remains a very active venue for quality Inuit sculptures. Brousseau’s Arctic travels are never intended as “purchasing” trips, but rather as occasions to enjoy the scenery and beauty of the North; perhaps this explains his on-going attraction to sculptures of strange spirits, whether they seem ugly or beautiful by conventional Western standards, and which he began buying, one example at a time. A number of these items appear in the illustrations of The Sea Woman, which, in spite of Brousseau’s involvement in bringing both the book and the collection represented in it into being, is not your “run-of-the-mill let’s-pay-homage-to-the-collector” sort of catalogue. The authors, Frédéric Laugrand and Jarich Oosten, bring considerable expertise and experience to the ethnographic approach they take to the project and to the text. However, they downplay not only Brousseau’s experience and professional expertise, but their own as well. Oosten and Laugrand chose 200 works for colour reproductions, which Brousseau arranged for, but only 53 went into the book. They also made recommendations on the placement of the photographs in the text (although not all were followed). The photographs have labels and prose descriptions, but are undated, as is unfortunately common in studies of Inuit art. The text itself begins with a brief preface and a short introduction to the history of shamanism and Arctic art. The subsequent chapters, “The Quest for the Sea Woman,” “The …