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Assit, inulerneqarnerat
nunap assiliornerlu. 2003
paasisaminik ingerlatitseqqinnissaminik
piginnaaneqarneranik.
Arke nammineq inuit taama nuutsitaanerannit
pilersitaavoq, naak sarfaq majoraluarlugu.
Meeraanermini Kalaallit
Nunaanni arlalinni najugaqarsimavoq
inoqarfissuarmilu Danmarkimi. Taamaattumik
atuagaq qamuunavik misigisaajutigaluni
nuannersunik oqaluttuarpoq,
atuakkiorfigineqartoq inummit
pisunik siullermeerluni takunnillunilu
tusagalimmit, arlaatigut takorlooreersimasaminik,taamaattussaasinnaasutut
misigisimasaminik. Takusaminik
allaatigisai inuttut paasinninneranik
tupigusunneranillu ulikkaarput. Qularnanngitsumik
isumassuinerup ersoqatiginninnerullu
akornanni, soorlu Arkep
oqaluttuarigaangagit assigiinngitsunik
nagguillit aappariilerneri meerariligaallu,
aappaatigullu aamma quianartumik
isornartorsiuinertalimmillu. Atuakkap
saqqaata assitaa takuinnaruk!
Ittoqqortoormiit tassaavoq “suitsoq”: eqqaamasaqarfiunngilaq,
itsaq pisimasunik
oqaluttuaqanngilaq, eqqaamasassartaqanngilaq,
iluatsitsisimanngilaq.
Tamanna “suinneq” unammillerlugu
taalliatullusooq oqaluttuarnermini takinngikkaluami
Arkep saqqummersikkusuppaa
assilissat oqaluttuarineqartullu
atorlugit. Oqaluttuamut tassunga
Jonsson pingaarutilinnik ilanngussivoq
sinaakkusiisumik allatamigullu
– aamma sarmiilluni, imaluunniit
“imarpissuarni pigisatsinnik” Danmarkip
oqaluttuarinnittarnerata sarfaa
majorlugu. Atuagaq una aqqutigalugu
oqaluttuarujussuup isertuartumik akunniffia
oqaluttuarineqarpoq, tamatumalu
kingorna kalaallit danskilluunniit nunasiaataanerup
nalaani peqatigiillutik
atorsimasatik toqqortersinnaajunnaarpaat,
1900-kkunni pisimasut, inuuneq
pissaaneqarnerlu.
Italiamiu eqqarsarnikkaaq Giorgio
Agamben ungaserujussuanngitsukkut
allappoq nunat killiit nunarsuullu sinnerata
akornanni pissutsit paasiumagaanni
uninngaarfii paasisariaqartut.
Københavnip Nuullu akornanni tassunga
assingusumik qitiusoqarpoq: Taanna
ateqarpoq Ittoqqortoormiit.
Carsten Juhl
Pia Arke. Stories from Scoresbysund. Photographs,
Colonisation and Mapping. 2003
Pia Arke’s book Stories from
Scoresbysund is a literary object
that it is difficult to place in
one particular genre. The book
carries the subtitle Photographs,
Colonisation and Mapping, and
these are designations that are
both precise and also a little too
neutral. For the book first and
foremost contains Arke’s personal
attempt at finding a more or less
coherent account of the genesis of
a quite special place and the life
lived there: the place is on Greenland’s
east coast, and it was populated
with hunter families from
Angmassalik, but the purpose of
establishing the settlement was
Danish and conceived as a geopolitical
solution to the question
as to what country – Denmark or
Norway – had “dominion” over
the north-eastern part of Greenland.
The Swedish writer and
cultural critic Stefan Jonsson has
therefore furnished the book with
“cartographical sections” that
describe the typical connection
between voyages of exploration,
anthropology, mapmaking and
political objectives characteristic
of a colonial power in the age of
imperialism.
The book is the result of a visual
artist’s work, but instead of using
her talent to create vivid depictions
of an isolated settlement in
a wilderness, Arke has allowed
the isolated and distant to exhibit
itself: the pictures are therefore
– with the exception of a number
of portraits – other people’s photographs,
and the reader also has
the opportunity to listen to many
Greenlandic voices in the account
of life in Scoresbysund (in East
Greenlandic: Ittoqqortoormiit)
over three generations. But the
approach to the subject and the
presentation of the many investigations
Arke carried out during
her study trips to Scoresbysund
are all characterised by the ability
of the impartial artist to pass
on insights.
Arke herself was a product of this
transfer of population albeit in a
cross-cutting way. As a child she
had lived in a number of places in
Greenland and in the metropole
Denmark. The book is therefore
both deeply empathic and cheerfully
narrative, written by a person
who sees and hears things for
the first time as she had somehow
imagined, felt that they might
be. The observations form a text
full of human understanding and
wonder. Undoubtedly between
care and solidarity as when Arke
tells of the mixed marriages and
the children who were born in
them, but also between humour
and criticism. Just look at the
picture on the front cover of the
book!
Scoresbysund was a place “without”:
without memory, without
stories from the past, without
recollections, without success.
This “without” was the big challenge
for the little epos that Arke
sought to conjure up with the
help of pictures and accounts.
Jonsson provided the crucial
framework and texture for this
epos – again from the side, or
cutting across the broader history
of Denmark and “our overseas
possessions”. This book illuminated
the discreet centre of that
broader history so that it is no
longer possible for Greenlanders
and Danes to repress the facts
of their shared colonial past, the
events, the life and the power, in
the preceding century.
The Italian philosopher Giorgio
Agamben wrote recently that
in order to understand relations
between the West and the
rest of the world, one must first
understand the camps. Between
Copenhagen and Godthåb there
was a similar nexus: It was called
Scoresbysund.
Carsten Juhl
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