The Great Defrost – Arctic questions from a contemporary Far-North artistic position
Conceived, curated, fundraised and produced by Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir / Dóttirdóttir, The Great Defrost brought together artists, scholars, curators and cultural workers in a discursive public programme at the Nordic Embassies in Berlin during Berlin Art Week 2024. The programme created a shared space for critical exchange around Arctic and Far-North imaginaries, climate change, extraction, representation and geopolitical interest in the region.
Rather than approaching the Arctic as a distant image or abstract climate symbol, the symposium asked how cultural practitioners from the Far North and beyond can speak from situated artistic, scholarly and political positions. Through lectures, responses, screenings, discussion and informal exchange, The Great Defrost functioned as a relational public format, connecting artistic research, environmental discourse and contemporary art audiences.
Concept, curation and production: Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir / Dóttirdóttir.
Moderator: Julieta Aranda.
Communication: Wayra Schübel.
With contributions by Elisabeth Brun, Katla Kjartansdóttir, Anamaría Garzón Mantilla, Marina Fokidis, Dehlia Hannah, Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam and Inuuteq Storch.
Hosted at: Nordic Embassies, Berlin.
Supported by / in partnership with: Hai Ku As, Gallery Gudmundsdottir and the Nordic Culture Fund.
Accompanying publication: Rhythm of Labor, published by DISTANZ Verlag.
Curatorial statement / Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir
With growing economic, political, and socio-cultural interest in the Arctic, the region has become increasingly valuable to a range of stakeholders, including governments, commercial actors, and local communities. As a result, it is emerging as a potential future battleground for resources and access.
The regions bordering the Arctic—historically referred to as the “Far” or “High North”—are deeply implicated in these developments. It is therefore urgent that cultural practitioners in these regions engage with Arctic-related questions on their own terms and from their own positions.
The Great-Defrost, held in collaboration with the Nordic Embassies in Berlin, brought together internationally recognised academics, artists, and cultural workers from these regions and beyond. The symposium addressed key questions through critical, artistic, scholarly, and art-historical perspectives, with a particular emphasis on viewpoints rooted in the Far North.
In conjunction with the symposium, Distanz Verlag published a book comprising essays by participating speakers, alongside a monograph of the long-term art-as-research project Keep Frozen. Developed over a decade, the project engages these questions through material, visual, performative, and filmic approaches.
Symposium
13th of September 2024
10:00 – 10:10 Words of welcome by Guðný Guðmundsdóttir (Gallery Gudmundsdottir) and Ambassador of Iceland Audunn Atlason.
10:10 – 10:30 Words of welcome by moderator Julieta Aranda Introduction of participants.
10:30 – 10:40 Kaleidoscope image presentation: “The Arctic and Far North as Tropes in the Discourse of Climate Change”*
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'.
11:20 – 11:40 Respondent and Q&A: Dehlia Hannah PhD Philosophy, Associate Professor of Environmental Aesthetics at University of Copenhagen.
13:00 – 13:10 Kaleidoscope image presentation: “Medieval Imagery of the Far North, Cabinets of Curiosity and Contemporary Souvenirs”*
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'.
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´.
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.
16:00 – 17:00 Presentation by artist Inuuteq Storch, the first photographer, Greenlander and indigenous person who represented Denmark at the Venice biennale in 2024.
17:00 -17:15 Closing remarks and summary by moderator Julieta Aranda.
Kaleidoscope image presentations: Visual material and original Icelandic captions selected from Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson’s Í fjarska Norðursins (Sögufélag, 2020), courtesy of the author. Captions translated into English by Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir for the symposium.