The Great Defrost – Arctic questions from a contemporary Far-North artistic position

The Great Defrost is a seminar and a book publication produced by the Icelandic art and culture production company dóttirdóttir in partnership with Hai Ku As, Norway and Gallery Gudmundsdottir in Berlin.

Curatorial Prompt / Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir

With growing economic, political and socio-cultural interest in the Arctic it is evident that the Arctic has become particularly valuable for various stakeholders, such as governments, commercial players, and local communities and are a possible future battleground for resources and access.

The regions bordering the Arctic have historically been called the 'Far or High North' together with the Arctic itself. It is urgent that cultural workers in the regions get to deal with questions related to the Arctic on their own terms and from their own position. 'The Great-Defrost' is a seminar held in collaboration with the established Kunstwerke art institution in Berlin, and a book publication in collaboration with the distinguished Distanz Verlag Publishers, also in Berlin, that brings together internationally prominent academics, artists and other art professionals, from these regions and beyond, to tackle few of the relevant questions from critical, artistic, scholarly, art historic/theoretical and Far North points of view.

The book publication will be both a collection of essays and a monograph of an art-practice-as-research project Keep Frozen that tackled those questions in material, visual, performative and filmic ways over a period of a decade. In the book and the seminar, both open to the public, seldomly heard voices and perspectives will be given a platform. The outcome will be a tool for Nordic and non-Nordic artists to place their own art practice in the context of current and past ideas of the Far North and the Arctic. It will be a tool to contemplate on the issues and traps involved. The seminar and the book will be a great contribution to an exciting current development within the international contemporary art scene.

Seminar schedule (working draft)

Day One Friday 13th of September 2024 – Arrival day and dinner with participants and representatives of partners and collaborators on Berlin Art Week.

Day Two Saturday 14th of September 2024 – Five hours tour of Nordic Art and Culture in Berlin for participants and partners with a guide.

Morning. Nordic Quarter in Prenzlauer Berg and other traces in the urban landscape. Guided tour.

Afternoon. Visiting Nordic Art and Culture entities in Berlin.

After the tour there is Berlin Art Week Saturday.

Day Three Sunday 15th of September 2024 Seminar: 'The Great-Defrost'

The seminar is initiated, conceptualised and curated by artist Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir as part of her non-institutional artistic research practice in collaboration with Hai Ku As Norway. The seminar is executed by Gallery Gudmundsdottir, Mitte, Berlin in collaboration with KunstWerke, also in Mitte Berlin, with advice from cognitive disability, LGBTQ+ and youth consultants. There will be a speech translator for the deaf and catering for economically deprived audiences. The seminar will be free of charge and open to all. The communication of the seminar is in the hands of Wayra Schubel PR communications. The seminar will be video documented for future access and archive.

10:00 – 10:10 Words of welcome by Guðný Guðmundsdóttir (Gallery Gudmundsdottir) and Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir.

10:10 – 10:30 Words of welcome by moderator tbd. Introduction of participants.

10:30 – 10:40 Kaleidoscope of images – 'The Arctic and Far-North as trope in the discourse of climate change.' - as presented in media, internet and art works.

10:40 – 11:20 Keynote: Elisabeth Brun, PhD Media Studies, experimental filmmaker and currently visiting scholar at The School of Arts, Design and Media, Kristiania University College, Oslo. 'The Disappearing Sublime: The Far-North landscapes as a trope in the artistic discourse on climate change (working title)'.

11:20 – 11:40 Respondent and Q&A: Dehlia Hannah PhD Philosophy, Associate Professor of Environmental Aesthetics at University of Copenhagen.

LUNCH BREAK

13:00 – 13:10 Kaleidoscope of images - 'Medieval imagery depicting the Far-North, curious objects in cabinets of curiosity and today´s souvenirs.' - as presented in media, internet and art works.

13:10 -13:50 Essay – lecture Katla Kjartansdóttir, PhD candidate in cultural studies at the University of Iceland. 'The Puffin teddy in the Cabinets of Curiosities (working title)'.

13:50 – 14:10 – Respondent and Q&A: Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam PhD Art history, associate Professor at School of Communication and Culture - Art History at the University of Aarhus.

14:10 – 14:50 Essay - lecture Anamaría Garzón Mantilla PhD Art History and Theory, independent curator and full-time faculty at College of Media and Contemporary Arts (COCOA) at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. Director of post(s), academic journal.´The quest for gold (working title)´.

14:50 – 15:10 – Respondent and Q&A: Marina Fokidis, independent curator and writer, founder of South as a State of Mind magazine and Athens Kunsthalle.

BREAK

16:00 – 17:00 Presentation by artist Inuuteq Storch, the first photographer, Greenlander and indigenous person to represent Denmark at the Venice biennale (in 2024).

17:00 -17:15 Closing remarks and summary by moderator tbd.

BREAK

19:00 Dinner with participants and special guests.

Day Four Monday 16th of September 2024: Departure

A little bit of historical context....

The hegemonic Roman worldview ca 2000 years ago was that the South of Europe was the origin of civilization while the North was the origin of barbarism. This view spread around European mainland with the Roman culture and influence for more than thousand years. In the Middle Ages the myth of the Far-North as a Paradise of 'treasures' was widespread. For the Europeans the Far-North was not much more that a series of trade posts and a source of raw materials. It was the unknown that myths and fantastic tales were projected on. A place only known first-hand by whalers and adventurers. The Far-or High North then came into to existence as a socio-cultural construction in the imagination of the European public through writing of scholars in the 17th and 18th century that had either heard the stories from whalers that had visited the 'frontiers' in search of whale-oil in particular but also missionaries. In those external representations the communities on the border of the the Arctic were depicted as a buffer zone, a cultural and ethnic outpost. The early 19th century Romantics turned the fear-evoking image of the nature of the Far-North into a trope of the sublime by associating it to high ideals of the pure and authentic, an unknown nature to explore and worship.

Contemporary imagery of the Arctic...

Contemporary imagery of the Arctic or the Far-North often reflect old exoticist and vitalist notions.The consequences to this day have been that to some extend both the public and the scholarly part of the populations of those areas have internalized a somewhat Eurocentric conceptualisation of its past which has bled to their identity in the present. This internalization of a Eurocentric depiction has in some cases transformed into a real fear of being considered 'barbaric' or on the other hand a strategic self-exotification for marketing purposes both for art and creative works, various products and raw material and the area itself as an interesting place to visit.

The trope of Far-North nature as the sublime is today much used in international contemporary art when it comes to dealing with questions of global warming and the anthropocene (or capilatoscene etc.). What is happening is the exotification of the Arctic in discourses of climate change. The trope of “the northern voyage” in Western imagination, has turned the nature of the Far-North into an area “relatively unaffected by anthropogenic pressures”, and those works have mirrored a view of the Far-North nature as the original pure authentic nature that is to be worshipped as such. Artists from Europe join large science vessels, come back with stunning imagery. Glacial landscape shrouded in fog, Arctic highland and Norwegian mountain tops have become a trope of 'disappearing nature' or 'global warming'. The tropes of the edge of the familiar. Where, however, is the local perspective? The everyday relation to this scenery? What about the fact that every one on this planet, relates to earth in their everyday place - and not through the Arctic? What about this mundane fact? Is the visuality of the anthropocene as used by those artists escapism?

In the cabinet of curiosities...

Souvenirs fall into the old northern travellers trajectory of collected artefacts that were both souvenirs of their travels, evidence of their experiences, and material expressions of metropolitan perceptions of Northern cultures. The objects were curious novelties as well as sources of information about the North, a place of marvels, wonders, and treasures in times when the North existed mainly as a series of trade routes and its treasures became part of European royal collections of exotic objects, the so-called cabinets of curiosity. Based on this long-standing fascination a growing interest in the Arctic, not only as subject for art works as mentioned above, but also as a tourist destination, is interwoven in narratives of exploration and adventure. The Far North regions offer a glimpse into the Arctic from a safe zone between the wild north and the civilized south. Like art lovers tourists are into movable objects so they can take the place home with them. In response to new opportunities one can see increasing focus on the Arctic in visual and material representation in tourism of the Far-North. The souvenirs function as a mobile materiality of the place, making it diasporic, as the landscape is constantly narrated through the objects. In this narrative wild as well as stuffed animals of the Far North (with the figureheads of polar bears and puffins) play their parts in creating an Arctic image. The animals are made to leave their habitat and to live in the midst of urban landscapes as furry cuddly teddies. As such they produce a sense of Arcticness or Borealism in middle of New York, Tokyo or Berlin. In times of climate change and growing environmental awareness, material culture thus participates actively in situating the regions of the Far-North within contemporary Arctic discourses, the emerging global Arctic narratives and visual imaginaries. The result is a seemingly pristine construct, exempt from the anthropocene effect, serving as a dreamscape for the growing global Arctic appetite.

The treasures of the North...

Scrolling back to the Roman times and early Middle Ages the myth of the Far-North as a Paradise of 'treasures' lived a good life. Those treasures referred not only to fish, seals and whales but even to gold. It was in a quest for gold that the voyages of the 'Age of Discovery' were made up to the Far-North in times when, as said, the Far-North was as series of trade routes of raw materials. With the changing climate in the Arctic these times seem to be coming back both in terms of transport routes and access to raw material. The historic role of the Far-North, as place of ' treasures' aka raw materials to sell on the global market and feed into manufacturing taking place elsewhere, is by no means over. At these times of change it is necessary for artists, academic and culture workers to look into the role of the Far-North as providers of raw materials and a trade route for the global economy in the past and in the future and the wide context of the globe. It is on this note that we return back to the statement at the beginning of this text regarding the major stakeholders of the 21st century

And a book publication for the future...

In a location, Berlin, where the audience is mostly mainland-European the 'Great Defrost' brings together internationally prominent academics, artists and other art professionals, from the Far-North regions and beyond, to tackle few of the questions that come up when considering the past, the now and the future of the Arctic and its bordering regions, from an artistic Far North perspective.

The process of meeting at a seminar and creating a book publication is one that will be characterized by collaboration and openness where colleagues bounce ideas and experience on one another.

The book will not only be encouraging for other artists, scholars and culture workers but become a tool for them to mirror their own practice in. Where can I place my own practice in the context of the current and past ideas of the Far North and the Arctic? What are the issues and traps to think about? How does one disseminate the new knowledge created? What kind of knowledge is it? As such the book will be a great contribution to an exciting development within the international contemporary art scene, from a Nordic perspective.

The photographs and research of Inuuteq Storch

The photographs of Inuuteq Storch will in addition to kaleidoscope of archival imagery become the visual reference point and framework of the seminar, not only illustrating but adding meaning and context to the discussion at hand.

Combining autoethnographic methodologies with archival portraits, Inuuteq Storch’s photographic practice bridges personal and universal visions of Greenland. His original and archival photographic projects have both been shown in art spaces and published as solo books. The works put a new focus on Greenlandic self-presentation. Stories that are told about life in Greenland have traditionally been influenced by Danish travelers and their view of nature and the people. In Inuuteq Storch’s artistic work, he searches for his and other Greenlanders’ own visual narrative.

In Porcelain Souls (2018) Storch worked with archival footage from his own private collection of his parents photographs from the end of 60s to the beginning of the 80s. In Mirrored - Portraits of Good Hope (2021) Storch on the other hand worked with historical archival photography from Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu (National Museum of Greenland). In the book the works Greenland’s first professional photographer John “Ujuut” Møller are selected from the national archive and carefully processed by Storch. More than 100 years are thus brought together in an exploration of the development of place identity seen from the people’s own perspective.

In Keepers of the Ocean (2022) Storch portrays the close community of Storch’s hometown Sisimiut photographed over three years prior to publication. The photographs are unstaged and give the viewer the feeling of being present. A rare honest sight when it comes to portrayals of Greenland – exceptional, meaty and sorely needed.

In a text Storch wrote about his project At Home We Belong (2018) that was shown this year at the Sharjah Biennial he states: 'Because of the high level of import, we have a very open view for the rest of the world and because of the little amount of export, the world has a narrow knowledge about os. That leads to prioritising of foreign acceptance. As an artist, I need to be accepted in other countries to get the acceptance of my people. On top of that we are still fighting against the stereotypes that were created when we were a colony. This is part of the fight, the fight to remain to know who we are, the fight to keep our identity.'

Keep Frozen research project by Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir

The book publication will be both a collection of essays and a monograph of an art-practice-as-research project Keep Frozen that tackled questions related to the Arctic in material, visual, performative and filmic ways over a period of a decade. This entanglement will provide a visual framework and reference for the topics at hand.

Keep Frozen is an art-practice-as-research project with several artistic outcomes that positioned itself outside of academia. Starting as early as in 2010 with a very personal gut feeling and urge for researching childhood memories of the aesthetics of living on the harbour, on the docks and by the sea, the project later developed into having a more broader focus on harbour aesthetics in general and more specifically the heart of those aesthetics: dock labour, movements and materiality.

In her work Gudnadóttir builds on her knowledge of qualitative methodology of anthropology in a practice that researches through making and showing of art works. Her projects are often large in scale and rest on the shoulders of many – an interdisciplinary collaboration under a leadership of a artist / director / producer / author / initiator. It was through the Keep Frozen research process that Gudnadóttir´s method of accessing a subject matter from several different artistic mediums and methods was developed.

By using various artistic mediums Gudnadóttir attempts to unfold the plurality of meanings embedded in a subject matter and at the same time the interrelations between different mediums. This approach also applies to showing. The artistic outcomes are shown as series of room sized installations where the constellation of individual art works evolves, expands and contracts between each iteration. Sometimes they are shown as individual pieces in group exhibition or, as in case of single-channel video and filmic works, screened in a museum black box or a cinema. Gudnadottir has especially developed a method of warping from one artistic medium to the next (documentary to performance to multi channel video to installation to photography for example).

The Keep Frozen research reached variety of locations along the Atlantic Ocean; to the isolated West fjords of Iceland; to New York City; to North-Africa and to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland; to a forgotten unloading port; to ancient trade centre; to abandoned beaches; mid amongst the dock workers and to a village of 166 inhabitants.

During the research there were important experimentation and reflections in the studio in Berlin but even more importantly research conducted through series of public exhibitions, events and publications and the dialogue with the audience that came as a result of that public outreach.

The early research process up to early 2015 is described in The Story, a collaborative text between the artist and German curator Berit Schuck, that was printed in the the publication Keep Frozen: Art-practice-as-research. The artist´s view, a collection of articles and images edited by the artists herself. Up to then public parts of the research project had been Keep Frozen part zero, a single channel video work, Keep Frozen part one, a mixed media installation event in Red-Hook, NYC, that also premiered the Buoy sculpture for the first time, and Keep Frozen part two, also a mixed media exhibition at Reykjavik Art Festival, where the video work Material Puffin and C-print series Artist as a Worker were shown for the first time as an installation.

The book publication was launched at Pro qm in Berlin at the 2015 Berlin Art Week and the following year Keep Frozen Projects became the highpoint of the research project. With symposiums and practical showing of artistic research of other artists both in Leipzig and Reykjavik the approach to the issue of the artist ́s view of art practice as research was broadened up to become a discussion that included all artists and artists works.

It also included premier of major Keep Frozen art works such as the 48-hour dock worker performance and Labor Move, a mixed-media video installation at Kunstkraftwerk, Leipzig and , Keep Frozen part four a mixed-media installation at ASI art museum in Iceland that showed the Golden Ship sculpture, the Shipyard Paintings and a found Ghostnet sculpture for the frst time.

In April 2016 the feature length documentary Keep Frozen premiered in the 'Regard Neuf' competition category at Visions du Réel in Switzerland. The film was later nominated to dozens of prices where it was shown all over the world in contemporary art and cinema contexts. In 2018 the flm was shown as a solo exhibition in the 12 x12 program of Berlinische Galerie in Berlin.

Major Keep Frozen exhibitions in the last years include the solo exhibitions All is Full of Love at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in 2019 and WERK – Labor Move at Reykjavik Art Museum in 2021. In the mixed-media installation on two floors at Künstlerhaus Bethanien the Artist as a Puffin works that predate the Keep Frozen research were given a context within the Keep Frozen research project.

For the exhibition a new sculptural Puffin work was developed, The Puffin Shop, currently in the collection of the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland. Another new work premiered in the installation was Thinking like a Mountain. Thinking like a Mall.

Works from the Keep Frozen series was also shown as installations at group exhibition Swimming Pool – Troubled Waters curated by Valerie Schulte Fischedick in 2021 and the Great Patch curated by Weronika Ptak at UFO gallery in Krakow, Poland in 2022.