Through a new commission created especially for Politikens Forhal, the internationally acclaimed Kalaaleq (Greenlandic) artist Inuuteq Storch delves into JP/Politikens Media Group’s photo archive, which holds more than a century of photojournalistic material. Carefully selected photographs from the archive are displayed without chronology in ghost-like, oversized newspaper clippings, thereby highlighting how Danish journalists have depicted Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) over time.
Through this activation of the archive, Storch challenges the Danish media’s gaze on Inuit culture and seeks to reclaim ownership of the images and narratives about his homeland. At a time of intense debate about independence and Denmark’s colonial past, Storch turns the media house’s own representations of Kalaallit Nunaat into a site for negotiation—of gaze, power, and representation. Who is really observing whom—and who has the right to do so?
– curator Pauline Koffi Vandet
The exhibition is presented in a special partnership with Fotografisk Center, which during the same period, in collaboration with the Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg, is showing the exhibition Rise of the Sunken Sun with Inuuteq Storch from the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024. The partnership includes a joint opening and a series of events highlighting the many facets of Storch’s artistic practice.
Inuuteq Storch (b. 1989, Sisimiut) is educated at the International Center of Photography (USA) and Fatamorgana, the Danish School of Art Photography. He represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 2024, and in the coming years, he will exhibit at institutions including Kunsten (DK) and Bonnefanten Museum (BE).
The exhibition is curated by Pauline Koffi Vandet and created in collaboration with Spine Studio.
Breathe the Ice is supported by Beckett-Fonden, William Demant Fonden, Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Ernst B. Sund Fonden, Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond, Politiken-Fonden, Lemvigh-Müller Fonden and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Installation view. Photo by David Stjernholm.