Artist Talk and Reception Honoring Inuk Silis Høegh

Rare Earth: A conversation with Greenlandic artist Inuk Silis Høegh and Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard

The film installation The Green Land (2021) will be on view during the day.
A reception for the artists will follow the talk. 

The National Gallery of Iceland announces the upcoming program "Rare Earth," a conversation with Inuk Silis Høegh, Greenlandic artist and filmmaker and Jacob Kirkegaard, Danish sound artist, on Friday, July 4, at 17:00 pm, to coincide with the Icelandic premiere of the film installation The Green Land (2021).  Led by the museum's chief curator Pari Stave, the discussion will center on the making of the 34-minute land art film installation, directed by Høegh, who worked in close collaboration with Kirkegaard on the film's soundtrack. 

In the conversation, the artists' creative collaboration will be explored in depth, alongside clips that illustrate the film´s extraordinary visual effects and the complex, often counterintuitive integration of field recordings with images. The conversation will also delve into Greenland's geology and geopolitical position. This landmass is uniquely rare in terms of its glacial surface and mineral deposits deep within the earth below.

 The Green Land is a visual meditation on a pristine landscape, one that is in a dynamic state of flux due to the planetary crisis caused by human activity. Shown in a continuous loop, the film documents a series of land-art interventions conjuring the four elements — air, earth, fire, and water — in a manner that evokes dreamscapes and alien terrains. Throughout the narrative, an artificial green presence creeps through the landscape, insinuating itself "like a green serpent" (Høegh), evoking a surreal, sci-fi aspect.  Kirkegaard's sound composition is woven into the film's sensory depiction of the classical elements, shaped by on-site recordings of the sea, ice, volcanic earth, and atmospheric conditions.  

Born in 1972 in Qaqortoq, southern Greenland, Inuk Silis Høegh is a filmmaker and artist based in Nuuk. He holds a master’s degree in Arts in Film and TV Production from the University of Bristol and a master’s degree in fine arts from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. His artwork has been exhibited in Greenland, Denmark, France, Iceland, Finland, Latvia, and Germany, and his short films and documentaries have been broadcast on TV and screened at festivals worldwide.

Born in Southern Denmark in 1975, Jacob Kirkegaard explores ways to reflect on complex, unnoticed, or inaccessible conditions and environments. His works unfold as immersive acoustic investigations into themes such as radioactivity in Chernobyl, mechanical food production, and global waste flows. The core element and method of his practice is the use of sound recordings to engage with the tangible aspects of intangible subjects.