Reframing an Arctic Image, Out of the Sublime

• Main Author: Thoreson, Kristine, Nicole
• Other Authors: Dr. Jean-René Leblanc, Dr. Susan Bennett, Dr. Brian Rusted, Dr. Robert Kelly
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Graduate Studies 2016
• Subjects: Art History; Fine Arts; Mass Communications; Education > Art; Literature > Scandinavian and Icelandic; Anthropology > Cultural; Arctic Photography; Contemporary Landscape Photography; Arctic Art; Arctic; Greenland; Ilulissat
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11023/2779; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27572

A proliferation of sublime, mythic and nearly vacant landscape photographs of Arctic regions are circulating in museums and galleries internationally; artist monographs of these photographs are also readily available in major booksellers. Although the photographs are artfully crafted and technically superior, there is the question of what an accretion of so many sublime landscape images of the North accomplishes in terms of perceptions of place, community and culture? It is true that creating awe-inspiring photographs that promote an appreciation for polar-regions is legitimate work. Yet, taking a wider view of this field of landscape art photography reveals important insights into our beliefs about places. Re-examining the production and circulation of recent photographs will underline ways in which photography creates and sustains place perceptions that in turn inform local and global attitudes about the Arctic. This Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project presents an in-depth account of three bodies of work by the prominent artists Olaf Otto Becker, Camille Seaman and Tiina Itkonen as well as the contexts within which they are created and presented. It will provide links to historic practices that have informed modern works, an analysis of the notions of place that emerge, and importantly, through research creation it will offer new and alternative approaches to art photography in the Arctic as a result of field work carried out in Ilulissat, Greenland.