Arctic hysteria is a concept that emerged on the margins of European arctic expeditions and the colonization of Northern territories. This “mental illness,” which mostly Inuit women were “diagnosed” with, largely contributed to their infantilization as beings in need of protection and civilization.
When the artist Pia Arke visited the Explorers Club archives in New York, she came across a photo of a screaming, naked Inuk woman being restrained by two settlers; it was her first encounter with the history of this syndrome. After being denied permission to use the photograph, she decided to re-create it as a filmed performance.
Arctic Hysteria features a nude Arke crawling over a large black-and-white image of Nuugaarsuk Point before proceeding to tear it up. Whereas Europeans projected their own biases onto reports of their northern “explorations” and encounters, here Arke rubs her body not on the ice and snow of her ancestral land but on an image of it. Her action highlights the violence of colonization and its effect on the Indigenous communities of Kalaallit Nunaat, Inuit women, and their land.
