Pia Arke

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For the catalogue to the John Hansard Gallery and KW Berlin touring exhibition curated by Ros Carter and Sofie Krogh Christensen, I was invited to contribute a catalogue essay that attempted to situate Pia Arke work in relation to feminist photographic practices.

 

Analysing Pia Arke’s (1958–2007, Kalaaleq and Danish) impetus to take her room-sized pinhole camera to photograph contested landscapes in Greenland, I tried to position her practice and methods in relation to other women who, in parallel geographic contexts and time frame, used photography to reclaim or subvert other cultural histories. The text is concerned with placing commentary from Arke directly in conversation with quotes from other feminist photographers’ questioning of photography ‘as a weapon’ rather than a tool. Extending out of this research of Pia Arke’s work, in collaboration with artist Joan Giroux we decided to include photographs and video by Pia Arke in the exhibition Channeling: body ←Image→ viewer at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, 2025.