Greenland residency

I’m in Oqaataut, a settlement on a small peninsular far from any roads (there are in fact very few roads in Greenland).

 

I arrived by snow mobile from Ilullisaat (a 21 kilometre drive over snow and ice), the bay being too full of ice bergs to make the journey by sea. 

 

It's tricky arriving in a place and not knowing it, and then being left to get on with it.  Not many people live here and those that do speak Greenlandic and Danish with a smattering of English.

 

I spend time thinking about drawing and making paintings. I feel edgy. I mean that in the sense of feeling not exactly comfortable, edgy is some times a good place to be when making work, but I am just still not sure yet what to do here, what to do with all this ice. Maybe it’s enough just to walk and look and listen and smell what is around me. 

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I haven't had time to digest the experience or start to make any large scale work. That will come during the next couple of years.  If you would like to read the blogs I wrote while I was out there here is a link to the first one and you'll find the others there: https://www.janettekerr.co.uk/post/more-snow-less-washing

 

I've also made a short 5 minute film entitled 'Questing' - a kind of response/collaboration with a UK group's '1st Friday of the months walks', and who are out walking looking at trees. My quest was to find trees in Greenland - here is the link: 

https://vimeo.com/719943328

 

Below are a few of the sketchbook drawings and paintings, and experimental pieces I made on site.