tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

Itsarujussuarnisamik Kap
Stosch-imeersumik soqutiginartumik
paasiniaaneq;
aamma Qulequtaqanngitsoq
(Saaneq)). 1999
Saqqummersitsinissaq sioqqullugu Arke
oqaluttuarpoq: “Periaasera soorlu ilisimatusarnerit
assilialiornerillu tamarmik
iluanni pisartutut aalajangersimasumik
takutitsiniartuuvoq, uani pineqarluni Kalaallit
Nunaata ilisimatusarfigineqarnerata
oqaluttuassartaa. Illutaat inuillu tassunga
tunngasut ornittarpakka. Taamaaliorninni
isummiutama ilagaat paasiniarniarlugu ilisimasaqarneq
ilisimasaqannginnerlu qanoq
naleqqiunneqarsinnaanersut. Tassami suna
ilisimasariaqarparput assiliaq takusinnaajumallugu?
Ilisimasaqarnissarput pisariaqarpa?
Ilisimasaqartariaqarpugut?”
Videop saniani takoqqippavut pappialat
assilissanik kukkunersiuinermut atortussiat
Taamaallat kullumik eqeqqumillu
attugassaq-mut atugassaq naammasseriigaq.
Qulequtaa tupilammik oqaluttuameersoq
eqqumiissorinarpoq pisariillisaanermut
ilisimasaqarnermullu, Nielsenip
nalunaarusiaatigut ersersinneqartumut,
naleqqiullugu. Qulequtaa oqaluttuatoqarlu
tassaniissinnaanngilluinnarput.
Ajaappiaq-mi aamma Kaataq-mi naammagisimanngilaa
assilissat allaatigisamit
avissaartiinnarnissaat. Assiliartaattaaq
qiortarsimavai katiteqqillugillu nutaanik
nangittunik assilialiorsimalluni oqaluttuartalerlugit,
taamalu katersugaasivimmiippalaartilerlugit
sinilerlugit sinaata killingani
qaqortortalerlugit. Qanoq pisoqassava assiliartaat
kisiisa isigilerutsigik? Minnerunngitsumillu
assilissat ujarassiuup qangarsuarli
nalunaarusiaanit sunatik toqqorsivimmiittutoqqanit
aaneqarsimappata kusanartuliornerullu
silarsuaanut eqqullugit?
Kalaallit inuiattut eqqaamasaasa Tunullu
avannaani ujaranngornikup grækerit ilisimatusartut
taaguusiisarneri kattullugit
Nielsenip atsiineratigut – tupilak-o-saurus!
– Arkep takulerpai sukujuit, eqqumiitsuliortutut
atorsinnaallugit Kitaamiut
nunarsuarmik isiginninnerannut oqaluttuarisaanermillu
allannerannut pulanissaminut
tinnersaanissaminullu. Taava
imminut “o”-jutilerpoq, tassanngaanniimmi
Kalaallit Nunaannik misissuilluartut
misissuilluarluni uliingaatsiar-lugillu
isigisinnaaniassagamigit.
Mirjam Joensen & Kuratorisk Aktion
Pia Arke. An installation that has to with histories
(The Measuring Stick; The Hammer; May only be
touched with thumb and little finger; Tupilakosaurus:
An interesting study about the triassic myth of
Kap Stosch; Untitled (The Bone)). 1999
In connection with the installation
An installation that has to do with
histories (1999) Arke gets hold of
proofs for the illustrated part of
Dr. Eigil Nielsen’s Tupilakosaurus
heilmani n. g. et n. sp. An interesting
batrachomorph from the Triassic of
East Greenland and takes his treatise
– which was published in 1954 as
part of the series of scientific monographs
Meddelelser om Grønland –
under tender artistic treatment.
What seems to have fascinated
Arke about the study is especially
Nielsen’s naming of a 200-millionyear-old
stegocephalia after the
Greenlandic myth of the Tupilak
monster. For her this was a crucial
statement about how rather than
being an untouched and pure place
Greenland is a construction created
by all the finds, descriptions, pictures,
mappings and colonisations
that Western and especially Danish
explorers, missionaries and colonisers
have brought about in the
country. As she wrote to the
museum where she was due to
exhibit: “[I want both] to get hold
of the larger structures in Danish
research history on Greenland, and
conversely to dive down into the
deeper layers in the actual word
Tupilakosaurus … One in Tupilak,
which belongs to the era before the
Christianising of Greenlanders and
their mythical world. The other
Saurus, which from a more scientific
viewpoint has to do with the
history of the world’s creation.”
So, in the video Tupilakosaurus
the artist visits the Geological
Museum in Copenhagen, where she
patiently listens to the head of department’s
somewhat arid account
about his predecessor and model
Eigil Nielsen. A story filled with
Latin classifications concerning the
finding of a Triassic vertebrate in
North East Greenland. The camera
cross-cuts to the artist, who is
firmly handling and stacking the
proof sheets for Nielsen’s treatise
at the same time as we hear a reading
of the Tupilak myth, which has
to do with a shaman who, briefly
related, makes a tupilak from various
animal and human bones (and
other more vital parts), after which
he gives it life so that it acquires
supernatural powers. The parallel
to the above-described construction
of Greenland is striking.
Arke said prior to the exhibition:
“As in all research and visual art
my method will be to objectivise, in
this case, the history of research on
Greenland. I visit its premises and
the people who are connected with
it. My idea here is, among other
things, to investigate the relation
between knowledge and non-knowledge.
Because what is it we need
to know to see images? Do we need
to know anything? Do we have to
know anything?”
On the floor next to the video
we again meet the piles of picture
proofs in the form of the ready-made
May only be touched with thumb
and little finger. The title, which has
been taken from the Tupilak myth,
seems absurd in relation to the idea
of rationality and knowledge that
Nielsen’s study represents. The title
and even more so the myth cannot
be contained in it.
In The Measuring Stick and
The Hammer Arke has not merely
separated the images from the study
itself. She has also cut them out
and put them together to make new
series of images and narratives that
are now displayed in museological
fashion with passepartouts and
frames. What happens when we are
left to the images in themselves? And
not least when they are taken out of
an old geological dissertation passively
put away in a storeroom and
are brought into the space of art?
In Nielsen’s mixture of the
Greenlandic-folkloric and the
Greek-scientific in the naming of
the Northeast Greenlandic fossil –
tupilak-o-saurus! – Arke detected a
mishmash that she could use in order
to insert herself artistically and
give a push to the world images
and history writing of the West.
She took, so to speak, the place of
the “o” in the name as a position
from which to cast an investigatory
and rather revelatory eye on those
who investigate Greenland.
Mirjam Joensen & Kuratorisk Aktion
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