Fire & Ice: On Belonging and Becoming in Kalaallit Nunaat

Artists

Martin Brandt Hansen, Emilia Sølvsten, Inuteeq Storch, Jessie Kleeman, Inuk Silis Høegh, “Eriagisaq” Kim Kleist-Eriksen, Lisbeth Karline Poulsen, Julie Edel Hardenberg

Press release

The group show Fire & Ice explores the question of belonging through works by contemporary artists who live, work, and have ties to Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). The exhibition presents works by both established artists and emerging talents, many of whom will create major new works for the show.

Fire & Ice explores the concept of belonging as a relational practice – tied to land, to communities, to ancestors, and to systems of indigenous knowledge practiced and reformulated in a modern, globalized present. Through each artist’s distinct perspective and aesthetic sensibility, layered investigations of identity, trauma, resilience, and relationships to landscape unfold and challenge audiences to engage with the tensions and stories the works set in motion.

The title Fire & Ice is inspired by the poetry of artist Jessie Kleemann who in Arkhticós Dolorôs (2021) finds a voice of the suffering, melting arctic in the Inuit myth of the Sea Mother, a creature of the cold elements, of ice and glaciers. The metaphor of temperatures run through the show across natural and societal references. Ice is psychological. It resides in silence, in systems and institutions, in repeated deaths, in colonial and social tensions – as the force that freezes life and future potential. Fire exists in the voice, in grief and anger, and in the fierce insistence on being heard. Fire is the personal force of resistance and expression that drives one to act. The exhibition inhabits this field of tension between freezing and burning, between silence and speech, between what is inherited and what may yet emerge.

Created in close collaboration with the artists, the exhibition insists on art’s own terms and its unique ability to shape culture through aesthetic experience and complex histories. In a high-stakes political and ecological landscape, Fire & Ice positions artists with ties to Kalaallit Nunaat as authors of their own images and narratives, opening a broader perspective on contemporary existence. In a context shaped by the colonial relationship with Denmark and new colonial aggressions, aggressions, questions of self-determination as expressed through art gain a heightened relevance in broader culture. Across generations, the artists in the show are storytellers, emphasising the multiplicity of voices connecting to Kalaallit Nunaat, resonating powerfully in the present global political landscape.

Fire & Ice spans visual art, performance, literature and activism. It presents new large-scale commissions as well as major works by:

Martin Brandt Hansen (b. 1990)

Emilia Sølvsten (b. 1996)

Inuteeq Storch (b. 1989)

Jessie Kleeman (b. 1959)

Inuk Silis Høegh (b. 1972)

“Eriagisaq” Kim Kleist-Eriksen (b. 1985)

Lisbeth Karline Poulsen (b. 1981)

Julie Edel Hardenberg (b. 1971)