Making connections: Pia Arke and feminists using photography

The works of Pia Arke (1958-2007) have remained visible primarily in Denmark and Kalaalit Nunaat (Greenland). The co-curated between John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin exhibitions Pia Arke: Silences and Stories (at John Hansard Gallery February 10th to May 11th 2024) and Pia Arke: Arctic Hysteria (KW, Berlin, 6th July to 20th October 2024) bring Pia Arke's work to new audiences and contexts. In my essay for the KW/John Hansard catalogue- Making Connections: Pia Arke and Feminists Using Photography- I situate Arke's uses of photography as a tool to unpack colonialist legacies and histories, in relation to feminist practices that were evolving through the 70s, 80s and 90s in parallel contexts. In this way Arke's practice is brought into dialogue with Maud Sutter, Carrie Mae Weems, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Laurie Anderson, Carolee Schneemann and Trina T. Minh-Ha. Pia Arke wrote that "My pictorial work deals almost exclusively with the silence that surrounds the bonds between Greenland and Denmark. I was myself born into that silence. I am a mongrel. It is probably no coincidence that I turned to photography, which in many ways is the bastard of art forms", 1995. The essay draws parallels between different methodologies and 'uses of photography' put to work by Sutter, Weems and others, in order to tease out the particularities of Arke's approach and position her work within a wider feminist discourse.

The publication includes an introduction by Ron Carter and essays by Mette Sandbye, Tiara Roxanne, Sofie Krogh Christensen, Siri Paulsen, Trina T. Minh-Ha.