HENRIK SAXGREN - PHOTOS - ULTIMA THULE

ULTIMA THULE is Henrik Saxgren's (b. 1953) at one time beautiful and dramatic photographs from the Thule district in northwestern Greenland.

In the 80s and 90s, Saxgren primarily depicted human conditions in countries with war and poverty, but since then his classic black and white documentary photographs have had to give way to a greater focus on nature. Today, he photographs large natural landscapes in color in an effort to give the viewer a glimpse into the beauty that is found in remote areas - locally or globally.

In Greenland, Saxgren's artistic quest reached its preliminary zenith, as he depicts on six journeys from 2014-2016 (each lasting one month) the interplay between nature and the prisoners' dangerous lives. With a mixture of curiosity and sober wonder, he depicts the prisoners' movements and their hunt for sea ice. He shows us the ice age landscape they move in and the dramas that unfold in their hunt for the great marine mammals in a dizzyingly beautiful photographic language that goes far beyond mere and bare documentation.

"One of my goals has been to create new images that can complement the narrative of the Arctic and contribute to our collective awareness of being human. But my exhibition may end up being a document about the last convulsions of captive culture. For the consequence of the global warming is the disappearance of sea ice, and with it the capture of the prisoners' primary hunting ground and this exhibition can be seen as the last records of the life that generations of prisoners in Thule have lived on the sea ice. On the hunt and catch for the large marine mammals. Like their ancestors since the dawn of time.”

The exhibition will be shown in the period 18 June - 4 September 2022.

(The exhibition has previously been shown at Randers Kunstmuseum, Det danske Hus in Paris, Johannes Larsen Museet and Sophienholm).

Photo: @Henrik Saxgren