Tina Enghoff

Objects from the Far South

2020

This series consists of 111 works.
60 x 50 cm archival pigment print.
Objects From the Far South, is part of the bigger project Displaced. Objects from house B-18, the former radio station in Nanortallip Katersugaasivia/Nanortalik Museum, Nanortalik, Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland. These objects were brought to, and left in Nanortalik mostly by danes. Nanortalik is situated in the south of Greenland, close to the Kap Farvel district, a central area for danes during the colonization of Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland due to a permanent trading depot.
 
All the objects photographed here are housed in an archive at the Nanortalik Museum. The artefacts originally came from Denmark or some other western country that has left its mark on Greenland during the colonial period. Telephones, measuring devices, typewriters, cameras and stamps are testaments to specific ways of communicating, mapping and recording the world, reflecting a colonial mindset. Objects from the Far South offers an opportunity to turn our gaze around: instead of taking one’s starting point in the colonisers’ gaze on the new land, here we see through the eyes of the colonised. Photographed against a black backdrop, the objects appear detached from any context or affiliations. Now imbued with a dated, obsolete air, they have nevertheless actively contributed to changing Greenlandic culture and have impacted people for generations. Looking at the objects facilitates a more nuanced approach to history writing and the narrative about Greenland’s relationship with Denmark.
  
Text written by Charlotte Præstegård Schwartz, Art Historian and Head Curator at The Royal Danish Library, DK
From the wall at the Displaced exhibiton 2022 at The Royal Danish Library / The Black Diamond, DK