Dark Ice, performance Greenland Eyes Film Festival, Inari

For Greenland Eyes International Film Festival we are presenting a performance / ritual walk, in and around Inari, starting and ending at Sajos, The Sami Parliament, Inari, Finland, 23rd of November, 2014, 16-18.

“We are deeply fascinated by the notion of human tribes that have developed the capacity to live under the uttermost extreme conditions of enduring ice or snow and the pervading winter darkness. We wish to learn about the physical, mental and spiritual strategies of thess people, which point far beyond the liking and disliking of modern comfort zones. We believe that a great source of wisdom lies in the practice of perseverance and the knowledge of raw nature from which contemporary and future human societies can learn a great deal. It is a wisdom that humanity is in great need of.”

For their new project Dark Ice the artist duo J&K are on a quest to excavate forgotten or near-lost radical wisdom from ancient Nordic cultures in regards to the human capacity to live in extreme nature conditions. Dark Ice consists of 2 performances and a collection of process-based text-pieces – a survival manual in 6 acts.

The first performance – a live-writing seance – that took place in various locations in Nuuk, Greenland, in collaboration with drum dancer Leif Immanuelsen, initiated the writing process for the survival manual. Since a new page of text has been released each time Greenland Eyes International Film Festival is presented in another country across the North, leading to a complete publication at the end of the festival.

For the festival’s presentation at the Saami Parliament in Inari, Finland, J&K will be executing a second performance in the form of a ritualistic walk through darkness. The walk will invite a group of participants to join J&K on a journey through and around Inari during which the experience of life in darkness will be contemplated: what does it mean to live in the dark and how does the human mind and body deal with this condition? J&K intend to develop the ritual walk in collaboration with local people who are connected to the living cultural and spiritual practices of the Saami people.

Dark Ice is developed for Greenland Eyes International Film Festival and supported by The Danish Arts Fund.