tupilakosaurus - Print matters!

uttutut kamanneq. 1996
“Issittumi silaaruttutut kamanneq”
tassaavoq napparsimasunik misissuinermi
oqariaaseq, ilisimasassarsiortut
ilisimatuullu issittumi
najugalinnut nipputitaat, immikkut
nappaateqarnertut qulequtsigaat
inuiannit allanit immikkoortinniarlugit.
Taama nappaateqarnermi
tamataqannginneq ilisarnaataatinniarneqartarpoq,
inummigooq
issittumi silaaruttutut kamannermik
taasamit nalaanneqarnermi nalaani,
oqaluttuarineqartartut malillugit
atisani sissortarpai tamataqaranilu
sikumut avalattarluni, apummi
assakaasarluni uumasutullu nujuartatut
nilliasarluni, anersaanit
tiguarneqarluni – naggataatigullu
nukeerulluni nukillaaginnarluni.
Arkep videoliaani arnaq anersaanit
tiguarneqarpasinnerunani
amiilaarnangajattumilluunniit
imminut nangarsimaartutut ippoq
pinngortitamut saqqummersitamut,
erniinnarlu aserortigassamut, appakaanniarnermini.
Misissarissuseq,
pingaartumillu uinngup peqataanera,
malunnaraluartoq, taamaattoq
suliaq avataaneerpasippoq, silassorippasilluni.
Inuiaqatigiinnut
sorlernut ataneq eqqarsaatiginngikkaluaraanniluunniitersitsoqanngilaq
pineqartup taassumarpiaap
pinngortitallu taassumarpiaap,
eqqumiitsuliortup isiginninneriaasianit
isigineqartup, ataqatigiinnerat
immikkut qinerneqarsimanersoq.
Taamaattumik tassaalerpoq paasinnittaatsip
“issittumi silaarulluni
kamanneq”-up nutaamik nassuiarneqarnera
– nassuiaaqqinneq naggaterpiaatigut
apeqqusiisoq kikkut
taama nappaateqarnersut. Inuit
issittumi najugallit – imaluunniit
tikiuttut taamalu nappaateqartoqarneranik
allaatiginnittut?
Kirsten Thisted
Pia Arke. Arctic Hysteria. 1996
The camera zooms in on a
photostat of a Greenland
landscape laid out on the
floor on a black piece of cloth.
Now a woman (the artist)
enters the picture crawling
on the photostat. She pats
the landscape, strokes it with
her hands, sniffs it, tries to
suck it in. She lies down on
her back, as if she is trying to
be in the landscape, pressing
herself against it, trying to get
into contact with it, become
one with it – but ends up by
tearing the picture to pieces.
Slowly and methodically the
photostat decomposes into a
collection of strips that the
artist rakes together around
herself. Finally she seems
to achieve a little physical
contact, not with the depicted
landscape, but with the material
the landscape was printed
on. She crawls out of the picture
again – a heap of white
strips of paper is left behind
on the black underlay.
The photostat shows one of
the landscape pictures Pia
Arke took with her pinhole
camera, a huge box that she
dragged around with her in
Greenland, and which she
could climb into and in this
way get close to the landscape
and distance herself from it,
observe, spy on it and freeze
it. In a way this had to do
with a longing for a remembered
landscape in her childhood’s
Greenland, but more
generally it had to do with
our longing for the renowned
natural surroundings in
Greenland, which Greenlanders
are assumed to have a
special connection with. The
video thus becomes first and
foremost a commentary on
ideas about our relationship to
nature – and more specifically
on ideas about Greenlanders’
relationship to nature.
Hence the title Arctic Hysteria.
“Arctic hysteria” is
primarily a clinical term that
explorers and scientists attached
to the inhabitants of
the Arctic – a special pathology
with which to classify
them and distinguish them
from other people. Nakedness
was supposed to be one
of the special features of this
ailment, in which persons who
were temporarily afflicted by
Arctic hysteria were said to
rip off their clothes and run
around naked on the ice, roll
in the snow and scream like
wild animals, possessed of
superhuman strength – finally
to collapse in exhaustion.
Rather than being possessed,
the woman in Arke’s video
is almost eerily controlled in
her endeavour to enter into a
relation with the landscape
that has been laid out and will
soon be laid waste. Despite
its sensuous, highly corporeal
presence the project remains
cool, intellectual. Irrespective
of the ethnic connection there
is no specific relation between
this particular subject and
this particular landscape,
which are seen and regarded
from an artist’s viewpoint.
What we have, then, is a new
and reinterpreted version of
the concept of “Arctic hysteria”
– a reinterpretation that
in the final resort poses the
question as to who actually
suffered from this disease.
The people of the Arctic – or
the visitors to the Arctic who
made the diagnosis?
Kirsten Thisted
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