Pia Arke and ‘Arctic Hysteria’: Visual Repatriation and the Problematics of a ‘Lost’ Artwork

Abstract

This article examines Pia Arke’s artistic practice that engages with the phenomenon of ‘Arctic hysteria’, which apparently gripped large parts of the female indigenous population in the Arctic during the early contact era. By focusing on the ‘lost’ photomontage Arctic Hysteria IV (1997), I aim to show how Arke’s method of re-appropriating photographic material from colonial archives can be seen as an act of visual repatriation, of “working through” and reclaiming the repressed histories of indigenous Kalaallit women.

Keywords

• Pia Arke
• Arctic hysteria
• visual repatriation
• photography
• social biography
• colonial archive