Exposure Awards 2015

Over the last few decades, Greenland’s society has undergone profound evolution. Thus, as the environment shifts, its people begin to embrace Western lifestyles and modes of consumption in parallel. Supermarkets, churches and cell phones are slowly making their way into Inuit culture. For the teenagers in the major towns the memories of seal hunting trips are long gone. And when they still occur in the northernmost dwellings, the traditional outfits made from animal hides mix with modern fabrics, and boats are used in combination with sledges. These radical and rapid changes raise questions about society and identity, and divide public opinion in Greenland. Its people are torn between a desire to catch up with the modern world, and a feeling that they are an ice population which, like the ice itself, is slowly melting away. I traveled to Greenland at the beginning of 2013, staying with the local inhabitants of the towns and the northernmost dwellings I encountered. I journeyed from the 67th to the 77th parallel north until Qaanaaq, with the aim of recording these changes on film. “Allanngorpoq” in Greenlandic can be translated as “being transformed”.