Melting the ice in the heart of man
A video about a 2017 project, part-funded by LRG, in which film-maker Jasper Coppes worked with the Greenlandic community in Nuuk on Arctic landscape perceptions.
While the melting ice raises seawater levels across the globe, in Greenland this process lays bare new land, ready for mineral mining. These future areas of exploitation might offer the country financial independence, but at the same time forecast ecological disaster. Environmental neglect and cultural oppression often go hand in hand.
In his 2017 project, film-maker Jasper Coppes established connections with the native Greenlandic community during a short stay in Nuuk. He investigated the iconography of Greenlandic indigenous relations with the drastically changing landscape. His aim was to set up a collaborative film production and to work towards a critical understanding of the differences between colonial and indigenous audiovisual perception of the changing arctic environment.
In 2020 the resulting experimental film Aasivissuit has its world premiere. The film is produced by VRIZA and co-produced by UiLU indigenous stories, and was recorded with a Dutch and Greenlandic crew.
For more information about the project, click here.
Author(s) and/or Contributor(s)
Jasper Coppes
Cite this item
Jasper Coppes (2020) Melting the ice in the heart of man. The Landscape Exchange, Landscape Research Group. Published 21 August 2020.
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