Nomadic Dialogues- NUUK conversations by Johan Sandborg

As part of Nomadic Dialogues ongoing development of research , this is part of a future Nomadic dialogue with Nuuk or relevant context in Greenland. The impact and consequence of climate change, limited infrastructure, the colonial and indigenous histories of Greenland, romantic ideas of exploration to the far north, present a complex set of conditions that shape a particular critical point to the wider shared narratives of making, belonging of place.

Nuuk conversations - October 2018

Qivittoq

green ghosts over the black sky

in vast glimmering translucent lights

she crosses the street cursing the ice

her pink boots struggling with the frozen road

brutally

there is no poetry here

nothing to hide the rawness of her walk

and the hunger of her wandering

she is the ghost from the hills

the voice of the dead whalers

the dead Greenlandic hunters

she talks to no one anymore

the wind avoids her anger

more than anywhere it is brutal

here

the void brings the icebergs floating down endlessly

encapsulated frozen blue light

we want it so badly to shine with beauty and dignity

but there is no poetry just relentless ice and sea

through her the cold and wind speaks the story

everything has a soul she was told

now it is lost to the bright clear images of captured alterations

taken and replaced with white walls of novelty and deceit

banished

she has wondered far from home, far from now in time

only to find there is no poetry here

anymore

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