Groenland

In 2018, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner (b. 1989, Marshall Islands) and the Inuk artist Aka Niviâna produced a video poem while standing atop a melting glacier in southern Greenland. Not far from a cascade of meltwater, the pair denounced the avarice of neocolonial actors who have exacerbated climate breakdown. Addressing her Marshallese counterpart, Niviâna likened the carbon-dependent global economy to a monster that feasts on human lives: “Sister of ocean and sand, / I offer you these rocks, the foundation of my home. / On our journey / may the same unshakable foundation / connect us, / make us stronger, / than the colonizing monsters / that to this day devour our lives / for their pleasure. / The very same beasts / that now decide / who should live, / who should die” (Jetñil-Kijiner and Niviâna 2018, 3:42).

C.S.H.