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ISIKKIVIK SKANdINAVIAMIIT
Polar Centerip atuakkanut toqqorsiviani misissuinermini
Arkep ullut ilaanni naammattoorpaa
nunasiaateqarnerup nalaani tunisaanerpaaq.
Orsoq. Tassami atuakkat tunuanni nassaarai
majuartarfitoqqat inissaminniinngilluinnartut,
tipimikkullu nalunaatsut orsunik nivinngaatiterinernut
atoneqarluartarsimasut. Taamani illu
quersuaagallarmat KGH-llu qitiusumik quersuaralugu.
Majuartarfiit tassaniittuarsimapput
illullu allanngortiternerinik tamanik ilisimannittuullutik,
Arkemit tiguneqarnissamik tungaanut.
Inuttai ilisarnarsisillugit suliaani Orsumik
majuussuiffik, Emil, Ole aamma Asger (1998)
majuartarfiit atatinneqalerput assinut nunallu
assinginut arlalinnut – angutinullu atii taaneqartunut
– imaaliallaannarlu tumisivarput Tunup
oqaluttuassartaa, danskinit isigikannernerullugu.
Allatut oqaatigalugu eqqumiitsuliortoq
nammineq tumisivarput, suliarlumi innersuussinernik
ulikkaarpoq, inuup nammineq misigisai
kattunneqarlutik nuna pillugu politikkimik
oqaluttuarujussuarmut, Tunup nunap assiliorneranik
ajugaaffigineqarneranillu imaqartumut,
kiisalu sumiiffiit taakku pillugit nunamik ilisimatusarnermit
nalunaarusianut eqikkaanerusunut
Københavnip qeqqaniittunut, danskimmi Kalaallit
Nunaannik ilisimasatik tassani toqqortaraat –
tikitseqqaartut periaasivissuattut kappoqqutinik
assigiinngitsunik qalipaatilinnik nalunaaqqutsersorlugit.
Isikkivik Skandinaviamiit-mik isumassarsineq
– tassalu Danmark paasineqarsinnaanngitsoq
Kalaallit Nunaat qimerluujutiginngikkaanni
illuatungaanullu – sangoriaqqippoq suliani
arlalissuarni, taakkunani Arkep Narsap eqqaani
Nuugaarsummi meeraaffiminiit kangerlummut
isikkivia assiliivimmik putuaraannalimmik
assilisani tunuani umissuanngortillugulusooq
allanngortikkamiuk.
Assiliiviup putuaraannallip sivisuumik qaammarfigitinnera
pinngortitallu assilisaata alianaassusia
assimi tassani isertorneqarsinnaanngillat,
taannalumi Danmarkimi nunanilumi allani
soqutigineqaqaaq piumaneqaqalunilu. Immaqa
kalaaliusutut pinngortitamut sumiiffimmullu tassunga
immikkut atassuteqarnerminik takorluuinerit
putuniarlugit assi alliserujussuarpaa assitut
ungalisaasanngorlugu, sunaluunniillu saavanut
iligaluaruniuk takorluuisoqarsinnaalersitsilluni
Kujataaniittutut.
Taamaattoq suliat nutaat kisiannertariinarpaat
erseqqivissumik saavanut ilineqarsimagami
natersuaq Kalaallit Nunaata qaarsuatut takorluukkamik
talliliisoq. Inimi erseqqivissumik iniusuusaartitami
– assinillu aaqqissuisuusunit
arlaleriarluni “ingitserneqartartumi”, taakkumi
assi qiortartarsimammassuk Kalaallit Nunaanniissorinermik
takorluuisitsileqqinniarlugu –
Arke imminut takusassiarisinnaavoq “akusatut”,
arnatut, illortaatut, silaarulluni kamattutut
imaluunniit sutut paasiniarniarlugu eqqaasinnaasamisut,
Kalaallit Nunaata sarsuatitanik
takutitsivittut atorneqarneranut atassuseqaasersinnaasaminik.
Video Issittumi silaaruttutut kamanneq (1996)
saneqqunneqarsinnaanngitsumik illuatungiliunneruvoq
ammip qalipaataa malillugu immikkoortitsinermut,
tassuunami “kalaallip kinaassusia”
taattuanut timaanullu inissinneqarmat.
Arkep tamataqarani Kalaallit Nunaat assitut
misissorpaa piviusunngorsinnaanngitsumillu
pulaniarfigalugu. Tassa ilumoortoq aserorterisoq
oqiliallatsitsisorlu.
THEME SECTION 9: SCANDINAVIAN PANORAMA
Pia Arke worked with a method that deliberately
mixed ethnology and art. Here
the ethnographer’s field work and the
anthropologist’s humanism merged with
aesthetic theory and the artist’s work with
matter in a new kind of mongrel method.
This section focuses on projects in
which the method is used on the Scandinavian
metropolis and on Denmark
in particular. The problematic is still
colonial history and its after-effects, but
where Arke for the most part examined
it from a Greenlandic angle, here she
chooses the opposite approach and attacks
the phenomenon through Denmark
(and the Swedish west coast).
Scandinavian Panorama takes its
title from a series of black-and-white
photographs of the same name – brought
individually on the front page of the five
issues that Litteraturmagasinet Standart
published in 1998 – but begins with a
project carried out by inmates at Herstedvester
Prison in Copenhagen. For a number
of years Arke visited the closed prison
each week, where at her own initiative she
ran an art workshop for the Greenlandic
inmates. Exhibited here the project points
to “the inhuman treatment we accept
by sending Greenlanders to serve their
sentences for an indeterminate period in
Denmark”, as Tine Bryld has put it.
With her sense for what has been
overlooked Arke places her panorama on
the periphery: in the art workshop for
the invisible Greenlanders in Denmark
and in Scandinavian Panorama in
the suburbs of Gothenburg and the
characteristic lack of character that only
dormitory towns enveloped by the city’s
growth can exhibit.
The panorama appeared in 19th
century Europe and created a never
before seen illusion of being surrounded
by and part of what was taking place in
the picture. As an observer one had a
command of the scene, standing in the
centre and with a full overview of the
pastoral landscape or victorious military
battle unfolding before one’s eyes. Scenes
from the time when granddad was young
and the city had not grown too large
to be overviewed. Pictures from before
industrialisation and the rural population’s
move to the metropolis.
Arke takes up the thread from the
tradition, but ties knots in it. Photographed
from randomly chosen housetops
in equally randomly chosen residential
areas Scandinavian Panorama punctures
the idea of overview as a supreme and
perhaps sublime moment. Rather, it
shows that any centre is a myth, a
construction and in the same breath sows
doubt about Scandinavia’s role as the
centre of the Nordic region historically,
culturally and politically.
There can scarcely be any doubt that
Denmark has been a trading centre for
goods to and from Greenland, inasmuch
as Royal Greenland (RG) had a monopoly
for almost 200 years. One day during her
research in the Danish Polar Center’s
book magazine on Nordatlantens Brygge
in Copenhagen Arke came across one of
the colonial era’s best sellers: blubber.
Concealed behind the books and quite
out of place she found an old ladder that
to judge from the smell had been much
used to hang blubber on at the time when
the building was RG’s central warehouse.
The ladder had remained in the same
spot and witnessed all the transformations
of the building until Arke took it
with her.
In the key work The Blubber Ladder,
Emil, Ole and Asger (1998) the ladder is
linked with a number of photographs and
maps – and three named men – and at
once we are on the track of East Greenland’s
history, somewhat from a Danish
perspective, so to speak. In other words,
we are on the track of the artist herself,
and indeed the work is full of references
that join the personal with the broad
geopolitical story of the mapping and
conquest of East Greenland and the more
compact geographical account of the places
in inner Copenhagen where the Danes
keep their knowledge about Greenland
– marked in the best pioneer style with
coloured pins in an A-Z map of the city.
The idea behind the Scandinavian
panorama – that one cannot understand
Denmark without at the same time panning
over to Greenland and vice versa
– is twisted further in the long series
of works in which Arke has transposed
the pinhole picture of the view from
her childhood home across the fjord at
Narssaq Point to a kind of backdrop.
The pinhole camera’s long exposure
time and the natural beauty of the motif
are unmistakably present in this photograph,
which has received much attention
and been much in demand in Denmark
and internationally. Perhaps in order to
puncture the idea that as a Greenlander
she would have an especially strong attachment
to the landscape and the place,
she blew up the picture to form a kind of
photo wallpaper, which, no matter what
she put in front of it, would create the
illusion of being in South Greenland.
However, there was just the little
snag with the new works that quite
unconcealedly there lies a carpet in front
of and in extension of what is supposed
to represent Greenland’s rocky ground.
In this obviously constructed space –
which has on a number of occasions been
“deconstructed” by picture editors, who
cropped the picture and thus re-established
the illusion of being in Greenland
– Arke was able to stage herself
as mongrel, woman, cousin, hysteric or
whatever else it might occur to her to
investigate in relation to Greenland as a
surface for projections.
The video Arctic Hysteria (1996) becomes
the ultimate showdown with the
kind of racism that places the “Greenlandic
identity” in the Greenlander’s skin
and body. With her naked body Arke
examines Greenland as a picture and
the impossibility of becoming one with
it. That is the lacerating and liberating
truth.
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