Talk

Art & Craft lectures: Kristine Møller Gray: Disturbed Relations?

This lecture brings together a fossilised walrus tusk carving classified as an archaeological artefact, a sealskin tobacco pouch placed among ethnographica, and the nineteenth-century drawings of Israil Nichodemus Gormansen, understood primarily as illustrations of Kalaallit life for missionaries, even though Gormansen explained his scenes in Kalaallisut. By bringing these works into conversation, I ask what museum classifications obscure about artistic intention, materiality and audience. I approach the works as relational: they carry connections between people, animals, materials and colonial histories, while thread and sewing frame and hold these relations together across time.