The Festival

Time goes by fast here! Most of my time is spent being either sleepy or tired. I kid. But jet lag is no joke, let me tell you.

The festival had an official opening yesterday. We spent the day putting up the exhibition and going up and down to the community center where we got registered for the festival and a goodie bag! We also get free food there, so it's mostly worth the walk to go back and forth. After all that, I was quite tired so I just fell face forward into my bed, in a weird stupor where I didn't really sleep nor was I awake. At some point I came to, to my heart beating like a drum and was sure I was having a heart attack. Actually it was just the opening ceremony march going past and I vaguely thought I could at least look out the window and see it but just couldn't get up.


After I finally could get up, I went to see one of the opening concerts at Katuaq. It was a choir and a Greenlandic artist called Angu performing together. It was quite beautiful and peaceful; the choir did a lovely job and Angu's music has this folksy, guitar-driven tone that's very northern and airy. I could detect hints of Kent, Radiohead and maybe Coldplay, if I had to describe Angu's musical style.

It's nice to take part of a festival as a guest, so to speak, for a change. I'm usually working in festivals and events so it's nice to not stress about that, though I still sometimes feel this compulsion to get out my camera and start documenting what's going on. I'm trying to repress it and not get all worked up about it, though. Just be a guest and not a photographer for a while. Let's see how it goes. I think I'll take some photos of some events, though. Only a few, I swear.


You can check out the festival schedule here. I'll try to attend the events that have Finnish performers in them, just because of solidarity, I guess? It sounds a bit odd. There's a lot of stuff aimed at kids, obviously, because apparently only children benefit from culture. That's one of my pet peeves, creating something for kids is a surefire way to get a grant for your project. Which is all good and great but not all of us have very kid-friendly ideas and also, other people need art too!

There would also be a cool ghost story -type of gathering, happening at the abandoned house where I had my pop-up exhibition in May, but the stories will be in Greenlandic and Danish, so I won't really understand a thing. Otherwise I might go. Maybe those stories would keep me up a bit later.


Well, the sun is coming up and I'm thinking a morning walk wouldn't be a bad idea. Then I have to check what I'm going to wear for my opening (not that easy because I've only chosen my top so far and I don't have a full body mirror so it's anyone's guess what the bottom of my ensemble will look like) and try to do something with my hair. The strange thing on top my head that I sometimes call hair has gotten quite a shock from the dry air, I think. It's also purple now, I dyed it before I left so if it's thinking about turning green again because of copper pipes in the plumbing, maybe the purple will neutralize for a little while at least.