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ISSITTUMI SILAARUT-
TUTUT KAMANNEQ
issitsinikkut, suiaassuseq apeqqutaanngilaq.
Suiaassuseq pinngortitaanerlu Freud
isumaliutaanut tunoqqutsilluni takkuttarpoq.
Kinguaassiutitigut piumassuseq immikkoortunut
marlunnut immikkoortikkamiuk,
immikkut illuatungeriissillugik nassuiaatigineqarsinnaasunut:
Angutip iliuuseqarnikkut
arnallu uninngasumik kinguaassiutitigut
piumassuseqarnerinut.
Puuttarnerup nassuiarneqarnermigut
silarsuaq iliuuseqanngitsutut misigisarmagu,
ilimagisap qanganitsap atuutileqqinnissaa
ungasinngilaq, puunneq – issittuni allaniluunniit
kiannerusuni atuuttartoq – tassa arnani
atuunnerusartoq.
Saqqummersitap immikkoortuani uani
neriuutigaarput takutissallugu, nunasiaateqarnerup
isumaliortaatsikkut naqisimannittaasia
ammip qalipaataannaannik
atortoqanngimmat, kisialli aamma kinguaassiutikkut
isiginnittaatsikkut immikkut
ittukkut, tassa inuianni ingasattajaartumik
arnaassuseqarneranik isiginnittaaseq.
Allatut oqaatigalugu nunasiaateqarniat
tamatigut nunat inoqqaavisa inooriaasii
arnarpalunnermik takutitsisutut isiginiartarsimavaat,
taamalu isiginnittaatsip nassataralugu
nammineq aallaavitsik anguterpaluttuusoq.
Taama isiginnittaaseqarnerup
nassataraa kulturini taakkunani allatut
isumaasinnaasut sakkukillisarneqartarneri
iml. eqqaanaveersaarneqartarneri.
Taama isiginnittaatsimi nunat inoqqaavini
angutit angutaassuseqanngillat. Arnarpasillutilli
iliuuseqassanatik. Arnartaalli tamani
suli iliuuseqannginnerusarlutik.
Taamaalilluni ammip qalipaataa suiaassuserlu
naapertorlugit naqisimannittarneq
isumaliortarnermut sanileriillutik tunngaviuinnaratik,
aammali naqisimannittarnermi
assingusuullutik sakkuupput, atorneqartarnermikkut
imminnut piorsaqatigiittartut.
Ileqqut taakku arlaannaalluunniit salliutinngikkaluarlugu
Arkep misissorniarsimavai,
pissaaneq naligiinnginnerlu suiaassutsip,
kinguaassiutitigut piumassuseqarnerup, utoqqaassutsip,
inuiaqatigiinni inissisimanerup,
iliuuseqarsinaanerup (timikkut tarnikkullu)
kiisalu inuiaassutsip kinaassuserneqartarneranut
qanoq atorneqartarneri misissorsimallugu.
Arkemut ilisarnaataasumik misissuineq
tamanna kinaassutsinut inuiaqatigiillu inuit
arnartaasa timaannut isiginnittaatsit akornanni
naapiffiit alianartuugatillu, persuarsiornaratillu
killisimaarnanngillat. Paasinninnermilli
qaninneraluni tissinarluni ilaatigullu
quianarsinnaalluni.
Isikkummi suussuseq takutittanngilaa.
Issittumi silaaruttutut kamanneq issittuni
ilisimasassarsiortut amernik ingasaallugu
oqorsaasersorsimasut tunuani toqqukkanik
ima angitigisumik kusanartigisoqarpoq,
soorlu sanianiittut issittumi isiginnaagassiat-takutitsisut
pinngortinneqarnerminni
nunasiaanerullu pitsaanerpaannik tunniussaannik
kusanassuseq takutikkaat.
THEME SECTION 3: ARCTIC HYSTERIA
This section takes its immediate point
of departure in a work from 1997
titled Arctic Hysteria (sometimes also
referred to as Arctic Hysteria IV). It
was the perhaps most exotic of the
many fruits born of Pia Arke’s investigations
of the phenomenon – and
in a further sense of the interaction
between gender and colonisation.
It may seem surprising but this
aspect of her work is strikingly absent
from the analyses, critiques and curatorial
concepts that her oeuvre has
so far occasioned. Nonetheless there
are myriads of women in Arke’s pictorial
universe – dressed, undressed,
stripped, old, young, dumbstruck,
in love. You name it. And it teems
with virtues that have traditionally
masculine connotations – like polar
exploration, mapmaking, hunting and
photography.
Perhaps this is related to the fact
that ethnicity, “race” and originality
are stronger markers of “otherness”
than gender? Or, rather, that it is
asking too much of Western thinking
to expect it to think both categories
together and not just focus either on
gender or on ethnicity.
What ever the explanation, “Arctic
hysteria” is a concept in psychopathology;
a Western scientific tradition
that concerns itself with how psychic
disorders arise, and how they are
expressed in the form of symptoms
and personal characteristics.
More precisely, it is a designation
for a so-called culturally conditioned
state that is thought to manifest itself
especially in winter and mostly in
Inuit women living north of the Polar
Circle. The symptoms are terrifying
in themselves: hysteria, depression,
eating faeces, insensitivity to severe
cold and the senseless repetition of
overheard words.
For many years it had been thought
that hysteria was a psychic state
that was due to a uterine disorder
The father of the art of medicine,
Hippocrates, explained that hysteria
was caused by the womb that in its
longing to be impregnated begins to
wander around in the body.
Freud later demonstrated the
falsity of this assumption and succeeded
in placing the womb in the
position it occupies today. Instead he
determined that hysteria was due to
the inadequate repression of sexual
violations or merely conflicts between
sexual wishes and inner prohibitions
in childhood. In this explanatory
model the violation and the conflict
reappear in the adult in the form of
hysterical symptoms. This is in fact a
causal explanation that has nothing
to do with gender really.
But in Freud gender and biology
nevertheless sneak in through the
backdoor. For the domain of sexuality
is divided here into two exhaustive
and mutually exclusive categories:
active male and passive female sexuality.
As the hysteric, by definition,
experiences the world passively, it is
not far to the reinstatement of the antique
thesis that hysteria – whether
it is Arctic or of a more temperate
nature – is a typically female phenomenon.
With this section we hope to negotiate
the idea that colonialism’s most
important form of repression is not
only racism, but also the special form
of sexism contained in the hyper-feminisation
of the ethnic woman.
In other words, colonialists have
consistently read the cultures of indigenous
peoples as signs of femininity,
while the culture of the metropole
was of course read as masculine. The
elements in both cultures that conflicted
with this system have accordingly
been downplayed or repressed.
In this optic the men of the original
peoples were not proper men. On the
contrary, they were feminine and passive.
However, the most passive of all
were the indigenous women.
Racism and sexism are therefore
not just ideologies, living next door to
one another, but also related forms
of oppression, that help to create and
maintain one another.
Without declaring adherence to
any particular critical tradition Arke
nevertheless investigated how power
and inequality seem to be constant
ingredients in the recipe for such
categories of identity as gender, sexuality,
age, class, functionality (of body
and mind) and ethnicity.
It was characteristic of Arke that
the investigation of the intersection
for all these identities and ideologies
in the body of the Inuit woman becomes
neither tragic, nor pathetic, nor
sentimental. Rather, it is empathic,
humorous and at times ironic.
For appearances can be deceptive,
as we know. And behind the exaggeratedly
fur-clad polar explorers in
Arctic Hysteria there is concealed just
as much naked beauty as the Arctic
nudes standing at their side had been
so copiously endowed with by nature’s
and colonialism’s hand.
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