Untitled (Torn, reassembled, and annotated camera obscura photostat)

B/w assemblage. Originally consisting of a torn and reassembled photostat of a b/w camera obscura photograph of Nuugaarsuk Point, Narsaq, annotated by hand with Danish translations of extinct traditional East Greenlandic songs featured in Paul- Emile Victor, Catherine Enel & Elisa Maqe, Chants d’Ammassalik, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1991 (Meddelelser om Grønland / Monographs on Greenland, vol. 280, no. 16)

In 1993 Arke incorporated the image in an installation for the group show The Flying Kayak: Contemporary Art from Greenland, traveling to different Scandinavian venues from 1993-95.

Original lost, negative from work documentation in archive

1993

Measurements: Original dimensions unknown

Collection of the Pia Arke Estate

The annotated Danish text in Untitled (Torn, reassembled, and annotated pinhole camera photostat) reads from the top left corner to bottom right corner (there are c. three poems in the darkest part of the work that couldn’t be deciphered):

Suluulaalilaa eriilalilaali

Someone has said that I would like to be the subject of conversation
but I didn’t want to be the subject of conversation
but I didn’t want to be talked about.

I don’t know anything about witchcraft I haven’t heard anything of that kind. The bad people up there
the bad witch artists, up there,

should be the subject of conversation
should be the subject of conversation.
There is a reason why some people are sick and are waiting for death.
Each time they come to a drum dance
each time they go mad.
And you’ll be the first

Today I’m not thinking of anything
today I’m not worried
When I crawled up to the top, when I walked up to the top I looked around at the world
this is how I thought, this is the kind of thing I thought of:

as soon as there is no world left, one cannot survive if the world disappears, one cannot survive
Mankind is dying out, everybody is dying
none of them say anything

Don’t tell me
that words alone cannot wipe me out
that words alone cannot remove me
This world can be felt, this world hurts,
this world hurts.
The basis of the words, the standpoint of the words
If they were just words
it can’t be right!
In the very old days
each time I looked
at an old man with a beard
you old man with a beard
it was you who did something for other people and you were envied
How is it that you are behaving now
you old man with a beard?
But it was you who did most of the cleaning.
Now him the old man with a beard
it’s him who does the cleaning
they were wiped, they were scrubbed
they were wiped.
I started on a song that I can’t use,
a poem that I kept until it turned moldy
a song I kept until it turned moldy

I am thinking of
someone from the East.
It’s him I’m thinking of
the man from Portussoq
Now I shall sing against you because I can’t forget
my father.
When I was a child
when I was very young
you killed my father
I can’t forget that
I can’t get over it
that’s why I shall sing against you

Each time I appear from a blue sky each time I appear from a blue sky it is as.....
it is as.....

Each time I appear from a blue sky each time I appear from a blue sky it is as.....
it is as.....

I shall sing while I am living now I shall sing while I am alive now when I see these bones
on the ground, quite pale

How shall I put my thoughts in order?
A long time ago I cried a lot
I followed those I was crying over
but that didn’t make my thoughts better but that didn’t make my thoughts better A long time ago I cried a lot

I followed those I was crying over I followed those I was crying over

What shall I do now, little me little me?
Before they never said anything so I must be brave

Someone said that I never do it
that I never come to singing contests. Someone said that I never do it
that I never take part in singing contests that I’m always in it when there’s a quarrel. That’s what they said
the married couple that came to visit

I am so glad so I sing
There is someone out there who is bad-tempered there is someone who is bad-tempered
I’m no longer afraid of such
a bad-tempered person
Who will neither hit nor kill

I shall sing of the time when I had gone on an excursion The weather turned bad
The east wind began to sough
I think it resembled my mood

no, it didn’t come from my mood
it came from someone who is never satisfied, never smiles it came from someone else
from someone else, about whom I have heard
that she never smiles

you look so bad-tempered!
now, you’re not bad-tempered anymore!

I like you so much
so much
she must taste so good so good that she rings!

Her husband hit her
she put on her fur for carrying the baby
she put her child in the hood
she took her ulu
she took her blubber lamp
she took her pot
she wrapped her sewing things in a piece of skin and then she went out
Behind the house she relieved herself
she caught sight of a standing turd
she was scared.
hi hi hi

I shall sing the song Maratsi has
not sung
this man did not sing it
because his opponent went south.
Why do you want to oppose me in a singing contest? They say that now he will sing against me

because you take pity on, because you protect my relative, my little sister.
Do you take pity on her, do you protect her? She has been difficult to bring up

she has been difficult to teach
she has been difficult to bring up
she has been difficult to teach
poor me
people will not like me
when they come to the singing contest

when they come to be present at the singing contest. You know, she is my only precious thing

He looked very funny
he looked very funny when he stepped forward when he stepped forward to sing
He broke into song but stopped before
he had finished
The people sitting inside tried to
sing along
Now you can’t sing any more
now you can’t sing in a singing contest any more you don’t know the songs

I walked along the water’s edge
I walked along this river
I conjured something up from this river and then down there I saw
a seal, a ringed seal
that was swimming towards the land that was coming closer
And with a towing line
I tied its tail and pulled it out.
It was a big flipper seal.
And then I removed blood from it

You like to scold
I shook you out
when you scolded
when you began to shout
In there they said nothing
no answer came from in there

I held back my crying
and changed it into a song
because when I die no one will cry over me. I kept back my grief
and changed it into a song
because when I die no one will cry over me I held back my grief
I opposed it.

he is thin and flat

A young man went out in a kayak
He rowed around a small point
he saw someone who was relieving himself. “have you relieved yourself?”
He who had relieved himself said,
“there is a little kayak!”

Is he guilty?
You behave as if you are not guilty!

I was walking
I was walking along the side of a lake. There was a fox
that was picking berries
It came up to me
I got hold of its tail
it pulled me up to the top of a cliff. There was some wind
there was some wind from the land there was some wind

That fall I took to the sea
Out there
When I went out there
I saw, I saw the great ice
I went northwards along it
And I spotted
A big icebear
On the ice
Eating a bearded seal
If only I could have some!
Some of its skin
When I went towards land
When I headed back towards land
I could hear the ocean rushing
It turned out to be the west wind
I rowed with all my might
I couldn't see the tip of my kayak
Because of the spray
I reached land at a point
I had sailed past my settlement
Because I just managed to do all this, I've made a song.

My little brother and I went for a walk together
There was no one, there were no people
It's only you who have used yours
I don't want to use it
Have you forgotten your mother's words?
It's bubbling up, the air is leaking out
It sounds like water bubbling up
Inside the village.

Looked downward
The lampstick right down there
The lampstick right down there!
Looked upward
The lampstick right up there
The lampstick right up there!

Many years ago when we arrived at the water's edge
I didn't catch anything out there
I couldn't carry a net on my back
I couldn't carry a speckled seal on my back
Many years ago when we arrived at the water's edge
I didn't catch anything out there
I didn't catch anything I could carry on my back
I carried a polar bear on my back
Many years ago when we arrived at the water's edge
I didn't catch anything out there
I didn't catch anything I could carry on my back
I carried a narwhal on my back.

I was fond of going up there on trips
to pick berries on a slope
surely, there was one who yelled
above me, there was one who yelled
it sounded like someone with a big mouth
it sounded like someone with a big yap

Now I'm just living
Now I'm just living
Because I'm not quite myself
Now I'm just living
Now I'm just living
Because I'm not really sane
I sprayed a big tupilak
Trying to catch it
It fell backwards
I just touched it a little
It fell backwards
I just poked it with the spear

I regret
that I moved up north
The bad people from Kialeq
Always scold
Always use foul language
So I became like them
I started to scold
I started to use foul language
I think
It was their grandmother who was ill-tempered
It was their grandmother who scolded me

See also:
Camera Obscura negatives
Arctic Hysteria