Language cannot be captured with a camera, but in the exhibition The voiceless, you can easily feel the frustration, vulnerability and identity crisis that loss of language and culture can lead to. Here, Greenland and Sápmi meet with their similarities and differences, captured by the lenses of Indigenous women Jukke Rosing and Marte Lill Somby.
Av Torun O. Wernberg
What Exhibition: The language-less
Where: Centre for Northern Peoples
Exhibition period23 April – 30 June
Marte Lill Somby is Sámi, but speaks Norwegian. Jukke Rosing is Greenlandic, but speaks Danish. Both are descendants of reindeer herding families, but neither has been part of the culture.
Together they are behind the exhibition The voiceless, – through their photographs, they wish to identify the voiceless and give them a voice. The result has been a beautiful exhibition that expresses vulnerability, identity crisis, the search for answers, and the need for acceptance. From 23 April to 30 June, you can experience the exhibition at Davvi álbmogiid guovddáš / Centre for Northern Peoples.
– For us, it has been important to tell parts of our shared history across countries and cultures. We are both indigenous women and descendants of reindeer herding families, says visual artist Marte Lill Somby.
Marte and Jukke met each other by chance during Nuuk Nordic 2017, where they were both invited to participate. They describe feeling drawn to each other.
– We found several common denominators, including that we had both lost a language and the story of reindeer herding in Greenland, which is also very little known. It became natural for us to start a collaboration that is about identity, about who we are and where we come from, says Marte.
In the project, they wanted to investigate the place where their ancestors lived during different periods of their lives. In Itennera, deep within Nuuk Fjord in Greenland, they found a common link.
Martes' great-grandfather Ole Nils Ravna, crossed Greenland's inland ice with Fridtjof Nansen in 1888. In 1905, he returned to Itinnera for further investigations into suitable reindeer grazing areas. 50 years later, Jukke's grandfather Jens Rosing, who is also a renowned multi-artist, chose to travel to Norway and Finland to learn the Sami way of life with reindeer husbandry. The purpose of reindeer husbandry in Greenland was to increase meat production for the domestic market. Rosing started the project by bringing Norwegian/Sami reindeer to the country. He concluded his involvement in the transition period of 1960. In the same year, Martes' uncle Anders/Ande Somby came to Greenland to herd reindeer for two years in Itinnera.
The exhibition visualises Marte and Jukke's shared stories, vulnerability due to a lack of language, and their search for answers and acceptance through photographs. They both convey their message of who they are, and also how they see each other.
– We hope the photos can be a wake-up call about what has happened through generations, and we hope that the story of reindeer herding in Greenland becomes better known. It became important to put a face on the "Norwegianisation" and "Danishisation". What has been lost along the way in terms of way of life and language. And at the same time show our vulnerability, concludes Marte Lille Somby.
The exhibition is on at the Centre for Northern Peoples until 30 June 2021.