Safeguarding Inuit Culture in the Face
of Climate Change
Many Greenlanders still vacillate between dreams of giant
polar bears roaming through mountains of ice and the reality of modern cities
and supermarkets where people push shopping carts down long aisles to fill
their desires. With climate change, we hear the heart beat of Mother Earth and
know that the planet is in serious transition. For each and every one of us, it
is not easy to know who we are in such a rapidly changing world.
GREENLAND SPIRIT is about safeguarding Inuit culture in the
face of climate change. It is a multi-media project that focuses on the now,
the before, and what is to come for today’s Greenlanders who will be deeply
affected by the winds of global warming. It’s a tribute to dreams and sorrows,
to traditions and mystic adventures, to the hopes for a new existence that will
preserve the essence and future of Greenlandic culture.
More specifically, it is a project aimed at encouraging Inuit
pride andpreserving the richness of the indigenous language, while working on cultural
and social transitions from traditional to modern life. It encouragesnew community
values, and transmits the ancient wisdoms to the emerging younger generations.
It explores how art and culture can stimulate social awareness and change.
GREENLAND SPIRIT Spirit offers exhibitions, concerts,
theatre, video and workshops so that Greenlanders can explore some of these
themes. The project will be presented in Greenland and Denmark in 2015 and hopefullythere
will be later invitations to Iceland, the Nordic countries, the Faroe Islands, Alaska,
Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
This project was first initiated at the United Nations COP15
Climate Change conference in 2009. The celebrated Greenlandic actress and
singer NukakaCoster-Waldau and the Paris journalist and photographer, MARTI are
co-project holders. Today the project has expanded significantly and belongs to
all Greenland and includes many of Greenland’s leading young artists.
One aspect of the project is to give real and contemporary faces
to this movement. Many of the people MARTI has photographed are artists who are
well aware of the impact that art can have on social change. Establishing a
visible community and identifying real leaders is a crucial next step.
We all know that the glaciers are melting at an alarming rate,
that the ice shelves are disappearing and that traditional sources of income
for Greenlanders are disappearing. We also know that climate change in
Greenland will be critical for the planet, as Greenland holds about 30 percent of
the world’s fresh water. At the moment the
world’s major nations are looking at the wealth of mineral resources that lies beneath
the surface of the ice. Already the new Greenlandic Parliament has given an
okay for a study on uranium research, which some say will pollute the entire
North Atlantic. How to make wise and competent decisions in the face of such realities?
What do all of these changes mean for a people who have
lived in harmony with Nature for thousands of years? What does it mean for Inuit
cultural integrity and for the planet as a whole?How do we follow our heart and
deal with climate change as wise warriors in the face of the greatest threat
that humanity has ever faced?
GREENLAND SPIRIT is about positive response. Hopefully it is
an example that can be replicated and crafted by other indigenous peoples and by
communities throughout the world.
We are the world we make.
--MARTI
21 February 2015
Great project...
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