Pia Arke Arctic Hysteria

KW, in collaboration with John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (UK), presents the first solo exhibition of the artist Pia Arke (1958-2007) outside of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) and the Nordic countries.

From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, Pia Arke mapped the complicated relationships between time, memory, space, identity and myth in images of and from Greenland. As the daughter of a Greenlandic mother and a Danish father, she incorporated biographical components of her own complex history. In Arke's own words, her paintings are about the silence that surrounds the connections between Greenland and Denmark and how she herself was born into this silence. Arke consciously moves back and forth between the roles of artist, ethnographer and researcher, drawing on various historical, folkloric and archival sources. She is considered a pioneer of decolonialist discourse in the Nordic countries and the Arctic and continues to influence it today.

The title Arctic Hysteria is taken from an influential series of works by Pia Arke. The exhibition brings together photographic, sculptural, performative and literary works as well as works on paper by the artist. It explores the narratives in Arke's works, which revolve around the colonial relationship between Greenland and Denmark, also to initiate a discussion about persisting colonial structures in general. Although Arke's artistic practice emerged from the connection between the two countries, it unfolds as a structural feminist critique. Arctic Hysteria is dedicated to Arke's methods mediated through the body, in particular her use of performative strategies such as montage, staging and restaging, with which she attempted to create a sense of belonging and critical self-reflection.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive publication with new texts that discuss various aspects of Arke's practice in an international discourse, focusing on voices from contemporary feminist research.

Visit

Short dialogic tours with KW Guides
The KW Guides are in the exhibitions Monday to Friday during regular opening hours and offer short dialogic tours for our visitors. The KW Guides can be contacted at any time for individual tours or if you have any questions. The service is free of charge.

Simple language and questions to discover

Find our exhibition content in simple language. The texts can be accessed via the website or QR codes in the exhibition. For further inspiration, you will also find questions that allow you to discover the exhibition content in a playful way.

Tickets for the exhibitions can only be purchased on site.

Free admission every Thursday from 6pm to 9pm

Free admission on Museum Sunday Berlin, May 5, 24 with a pre-booked day ticket via museumssonntag.berlin