Inuk Silis Høegh: The Green Land

This summer, the National Gallery of Iceland will present the Icelandic premiere of Inuk Silis Høegh’s The Green Land (2021), a 34-minute film installation with sound. Born in Qaqortoq, southern Greenland, in 1972, Inuk Silis Høegh is a film director and conceptual artist who often works at the intersection of both disciplines. He lives and works in Nuuk. 

Set in and around Nuuk and Mantisoq, The Green Land is a visual mediation on a landscape that is both pristine and in a state of flux due to human intervention and climate change. Shown in a continuous video loop, the work centers on four elements – fire, earth, water, and air – introduced into the landscape in temporary (and non-toxic) land art interventions that appear as green presences. These elements take on spiritual dimensions, in what the artist has described as “the green colour insinuating itself into the landscape like a green serpent.” The film is accompanied by sound composed by the Danish sound artist Jacob Kierkegaard (b. 1975), whose work investigates the potential musicality of naturally-occurring sound, captured in the sea, ice, volcanic earth, and the atmosphere.

A multi-year project, The Green Land was financed by the Government of Greenland, The Nordic Culture Fund, Danish Arts Foundation, Sermeq Fonden, Nordic Culture Point, NunaFonden, The Nordic Institute in Greenland, and Sonning-Fonden.