tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

suiffik, Emil, Ole aamma
Asger. 1998
sumiiffinnik imminnut ungaseqisunik:
København aamma Tunup Avannaa.
taamaakkaluartoq taakku oqaluttuarisaanikkut
imminnut ataqatigiipput; oqaluttuarisaanermik
tassaasumik Kalaallit
Nunaata pisuussutaanik piginnilernissamik,
avannaarsuanik nakkutilliilernissamik,
tapiissuteqartarnermik, nunap inuiisa
inooriaasiannik allanngortitsinermik
allarpassuarnillu inukulunnguit pilliutigisimasaannik
oqaluttuartumik.
Majuartarfiit, nunap assinga, assit, eqqaamasat
oqaluttuarlu. Arkep nammineq
meeraanerminik oqaluttuaa, akuliunneqartoq
politikkikkut aqutsinnerup
oqaluttuassartaanik, sakkutooqarnikkut
aqutsinermik, killeqarfinnik nakkutilliinermik
inuinnaallu ulluinnarni atugaannik.
Assersuutigiinnarlugu saqqummersitap
qulequtaani atit: Ole, Arkep aqqaluaa,
suli Ittoqqortoormiini najugaqarlunilu
sulisoq aammalu Emil, Arkep illortaava,
sorsunnersuaq kingulleq sioqqutitsiarlugu
Danmarkiliartoq angerlarsinnaajunnaarlunilu
nunarsuarmioqatigiit aaqqiagiikkunnaarnerat,
nammineq qanoq iliorfigingaarsinnaanngikkani,
pissutigalugu.
Tassani tamani qitiusutut ippoq asseq
qiterleq qalipaateqanngitsoq: Arkep nammineq
oqaluttuassartaa, oqaluttuarujussuarmi
namminermi qitiusoq. Kisianni Arkep
oqaluttuassartaa imaaginnarsinnaavoq
atuakkami inunnik tamanik, assigiinngitsutigut
ilisaritinneqartunik, kattussisoq.
Politikeriniit aningaasanik ilisimasalinnut
ilaquttanullu, tassani najugalinnut. Aammalumi
ilaqutariinnut allanut tamanut,
ulluinnarni inooqataanermikkut oqaluttuarujussuarmut
peqataqaasunut.
Taamaalilluta aqqusaartoreerpavut
eqqaamasat, oqaluttuat pisimasullu,
aqqusaartuineq atuakkap naggataasutullusooq
ileqqorissaarnissamik apeqqutaa:
Qanoruna immitsinnut ilatsinnullu iliortuvut,
inooqatigiinnitsinni imminut ataqatigiissumi
immitsinnut ataqqeqatigiilluta
pinngikkutta?
Immaqa apeqqutituaavoq illit nammineq
oqaluttuassartat illit kisivit pigerusukkit?
Søren Jønsson Granat
Pia Arke. The Blubber Ladder, Emil, Ole and
Asger. 1998
The installation The Blubber Ladder,
Emil, Ole and Asger consists
of a number of framed colour photographs,
a single black-and-white
photograph and a number of maps.
And then a wooden ladder that is
clearly fairly old. The ladder smells,
and it was the smell of blubber that
initially caught Pia Arke’s attention.
The ladder smells of the place where
it was found, namely at the centre
for trade between Denmark and
Greenland, Royal Greenland. The
place is marked on the little yellow
map from Kraks Forlag, together
with other places of scientific or
economic importance for relations
between Denmark and Greenland:
The National Museum of Denmark,
the Danish Polar Center and the
Zoological Museum in Copenhagen.
The work consists, furthermore,
of a number of other photographs,
three of which are obviously linked,
since they seem to have more or
less the same lighting, colours and
background. These are the pictures
of the typewriter, the rubber dinghy
and the meat grinder. Utensils
that are quite certainly no longer
used. They have become leftovers
that now carry only the memory
of the function they formerly had.
They have become history. A history
that speaks of the presence in
Greenland of non-Greenlanders.
For Arke was given the negatives
by the Asger whose name figures in
the work’s title. He was a member
of the Sirius Patrol and took the
pictures when he was on patrol in
North East Greenland.
The photograph in the middle,
however, stands out from the other
elements in the installation. It is
in black-and-white, and there is
not much to see, merely a horizon,
a view over the sea. It was taken
with Arke’s big camera obscura and
shows the view from her childhood
home in Scoresbysund/Ittooqqortoormiit,
a home that no longer
exists. This means that the picture
is a memoir, a remnant in the conscious
mind that represents Arke’s
own history in this location.
The installation’s maps are clearly
of very different dates, and they
describe places that are situated
very far apart: Copenhagen and
North East Greenland. But these
places are tied together by history,
a history that has to do with access
to Greenland’s natural resources,
with control of the frontier in the
far north, with block subsidies,
with changes in a people’s original
way of life and all the costs this has
had for ordinary people.
A ladder, maps, photos, memories
and history. Arke’s own childhood
history, interwoven with a history
of political control, military control,
with patrolling national borders
and with ordinary everyday human
fates. For instance, the other
names in the title of the work:
Ole, Arke’s half-brother, who now
lives and works in Scoresbysund/
Ittooqqortoormiit and Emil, Arke’s
cousin, who came to Denmark just
before World War II and was unable
to return home because of an
international conflict that did not
have much to do with him.
Everything revolves around the
black-and-white picture in the
middle: Arke’s own history, as
it is placed in the middle of the
broader history. But Arke’s history
is perhaps merely the factor that
in the work ties together all the
people who are represented here
in different ways. From politicians
and economists to her relatives,
who lived in this place. Like all
the other families, whose ordinary
lives both create and are part of the
broader history.
Hereby the work becomes a journey
through memories, history and the
past; a journey that ends by posing
an ethical question: For what do we
do to ourselves and each other, if we
fail to treat the ways in which our
lives are intertwined with respect?
The question is perhaps whether
your own history belongs only to
yourself?
Søren Jønsson Granat
67