tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

eSKIMUU SILANNgA-
JAARTOg
luni. Taakku pipput Nationalmuseumimi,
Kalaallit Illuutaanni Københavnimilu Arktisk
Intitutimi, ingerlanneqartarlutillu SfDEF-imit
aallarniuteqarnikkut, filmip ataatsip arlallilluunniit
takutinnerisigut kingornatigullu
najuuttunik oqallitsitsinikkut.
Filmit tamanik samminnittuupput ilagalugulu
nipeqanngitsumik filmiliaq Den store
Grønlandsfilm 1921-meersoq, ilitsersuisoralugit
Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen & H.F.
Rimmen, filmiliarineqarlunilu “Thulemiit
ilisimasassarsiornerit 5”-ata, issittumi ilisimasassarsiortartumit
tusaamasaasumit Knud
Rasmussenimit siulersorneqartup, aallartinissarnerata
nalaani. Aammattaarli filmiliat
nutaanerusut ilaapput soorlu Martin Appelt &
Ole Mallingip pisimasulersaarutaat Tunit – det
forsvundne folk 1998-imeersoq (DR 2-mi 1999imi
takutinneqartoq ilaavoq).
Filmit takutinneqartut qulequtserneqarnerannut
tunngaviupput aallaaserisat naatsut
taama qulequtallit, Erik Gantip atuagassiami
Tidsskriftet Grønland-imi 1996-imi saqqummersittagai.
Taama qulequtsiinermigut uparuarniarpaa
Nunat Killiit “eskimuumik” eqqunngitsumik
ilisarititsisarnerat qaqortumik amilimmit allaanerulluni
“eqqumiikajaartuunerarlugu”, uparuarniarluguttaaq
nammineq “eqqumiikajaatut”
inissisimanini ullumikkut “kalaaliusutut”,
eqqunngitsumik ilisarititsinernit taakkunannga
nikilluni isiginnaartutut, taamalu nikinnikkut
uppernarsisariaqarlugu, tunuannulluunniit
pisinnaagaluaruni, qangatut “eskimuujussusermut”
utersinnaanani. Kalaaleq eqqumiikajaaq
tassanngaanniit isigalugu tassaavoq nungukkiartuutigaluni
assersuutissanngoriartortoq
pitsaasoq – “taama sakkussalersorneqarnitsivut
malugisinnaalluarparput namminiussuseq aammattaaq
tassaasoq tamatigut allaanissaq”, soorlu
Gantip allatani naggaseraa.
Filmertitsiviup immikkoortortaani
anguniarneqarpoq “eskimuujussutsimik”
ilisarititsinerit ilaasa, Arkep allallu nunasiaataanerup
kingornagut assilialiortartut uparuartorniagaasa,
erseqqissarnissaat: Eskimuut
nagguiat, ilakkuminarnerat, pissuseqqaanut
qaninnerat, meerarpalunnerat, ataatsimoorussisarnerat,
imminut naapertuuttumik
tunngavilersorluni eqqarsartaasiat, piuaatsuunerat
inuunermillu nuannaarutiginninnermik
ingerlaannaq takutitsisarnerat.
Film-it takutitassat marluupput, ataani
qulequttat atuakkit. Paarla kaallutik ulloq
allortarlugu takutinneqartassapput katersugaasiviup
ammasarfiani:
Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen & H.F. Rimmen.
Den store Grønlandsfilm. 1921.
Leo Hansen. Med Hundeslæde gennem
Alaska. 1926.
Aammattaaq jannuaarip 23-anni aamma
martsi 10-anni 2010 tamanut ammasumik
oqallitsitsineqassaartaaq, SfDEF-ip anersaava
malillugu filmi kingulliullugu taasaq takutinneqassalluni
oqallissutigineqarlunilu.
THEME SECTION 8: THE ECCENTRIC ESKIMO
This section diverges a little from the
others. It contains only one work by Pia
Arke, namely a series of eight colour
photographs from the 1990s that soberly
register deposits and imprints that in
all their ochre beauty bear witness
to the onetime presence of European
patrols and outposts. The place is East
Greenland, and the deposits come from
objects – trashed oil drums, sheet metal,
lamps, etc. – which rusted away in the
course of time and have become one with
that very same stony ground that their
original owners so diligently studied and
processed.
The references in the series to polar
expeditions at distant outposts are
reflected in the section’s tent that
forms the setting for a film programme
curated by the Society for Ethnographic
Film Blunders (SfEFB), presenting two
classical ethnographic films during the
exhibition. The society with the unusual
name was founded by Arke, her brother
Erik Gant and Anders Jørgensen at the
beginning of the year 2000. While Gant
and Jørgensen had both investigated
cinematic representations of Greenlanders
and Inuit in university theses – Gant
in his Ph.D. thesis Eskimotid [Eskimo
Time] (2004-05) and Jørgensen in his
graduate thesis Det primitive moderne.
Knud Rasmussens etnografiske ekspeditionsfilm
1917-1927 [The Primitive Modern:
Knud Rasmussen’s Ethnographic
Expedition Films 1917-1927] (2000)
– Arke had occupied herself broadly
with the importance of pictorial media
in the mapping and colonisation of East
Greenland in particular.
The three shared not only an interest
in investigating how indigenous peoples
– therefore also “Eskimos” – have been
represented in Western ethnography
and films over the last nine decades.
They also wished to discuss with the
general public what they saw and, if
possible, to reverse the ethnographic
and filmic gaze so that it could see itself.
In other words, they took the same
viewing angle that the ethnographic
film has imposed on indigenous peoples
in order to apply it to ethnographic film
itself. It goes without saying that in this
process the focus fell on the ethnographers,
archaeologists, filmmakers and
TV people, who made the films, and in
a further sense on the cinemagoers and
TV viewers, who had seen them and
taken the films for gospel.
Thus, with analysis and satire as
their weapons SfEFB sallied forth and
arranged a number of public séances,
as they called them. They took place at,
for instance, the National Museum of
Denmark, the Greenland House and the
Danish Polar Center in Copenhagen and
were built up around an introductory
presentation from SfEFB, the showing
of one or more films and a subsequent
discussion with the audience.
The film material covered a lot of
ground and included an early silent film
like Den store Grønlandsfilm [The Great
Greenland Film] from 1921, directed
by Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen & H.F.
Rimmen, and filmed during the first half
of the so-called “5th Thule Expedition”
under the leadership of the renowned polar
explorer Knud Rasmussen. But also
more recent material, like Martin Appelt
& Ole Malling’s documentary Tunit – det
forsvundne folk [Tunit – The People that
Disappeared] from 1998 (screened on
Danish television in 1999), formed part
of the material shown.
The film programme takes its title
from an essay of the same name that
Erik Gant published in Tidsskriftet
Grønland in 1996. His title refers both
to the West’s misrepresentations of
“the Eskimo” as “eccentric” in her/his
difference from white people and to his
own “eccentric” position as a modern
“Greenlander”, who regards these
misrepresentations displaced from
them, and who in this displacement is
forced to recognise that even if he could
go behind them, there is no way back to
the original “Eskimoicity”. In this optic
the eccentric Greenlander is at one and
the same time in the process of going
under and on the way to becoming a
good example – “equipped as we are
with a sure sense that being oneself is
also always to be something else”, as
Gant concludes his text.
With the film programme this section
wishes to spell out some of the “Eskimoic”
representation models that Arke
and other postcolonial artists have
tried to confront: Eskimoic originality,
naturalness, primitiveness, childishness,
collectivism, pre-logic, peaceableness and
spontaneous joie-de-vivre.
The film programme consists of
the two films listed below, which are
screened alternately every day during
museum opening hours:
Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen & H.F.
Rimmen. Den store Grønlandsfilm [The
Great Greenland Film]. 1921.
Leo Hansen. Med Hundeslæde
gennem Alaska [With a Dog Sledge
Through Alaska]. 1926.
On January 23 and March 10, 2010
two public discussion séances will be
held, at which in SfEFB’s spirit we will
show and discuss the last-mentioned
film. For more info, see “Events during
the exhibition” on p. 76.
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