You first picked up the camera when you were a\u00a0kid, taking what you\u2019ve described as \u200b\u201ccrooked\u201d photos on your parents\u2019 cameras, which were strictly off limits. Then you began photographing in a\u00a0more serious way as a\u00a0teenager. What was the instinct you had to take those photos? <\/p>\n
Inuuteq: No instinct, just interest. Curiosity. Afterwards, when I\u00a0got more technical, I\u00a0was doing a\u00a0lot more experiments during that time\u2009\u2014\u2009with colours, with distances. I\u00a0didn\u2019t know what kind of lens I\u00a0liked yet. I\u00a0was shooting everyday stuff with my classmates. Most of the photos I\u00a0took were in class, but I\u00a0was skating a\u00a0lot with friends and snowboarding as well. It\u2019s more difficult to take digital photos in the winter. The battery dies [more quickly]. <\/p>\n
How did you then decide that you wanted to study photography? <\/p>\n
IS: I\u00a0realised the importance of photography for society. It plays a\u00a0major role in news and everyday life. I\u00a0felt we didn\u2019t have a\u00a0specific photographer who was going to take up the responsibility of that role [in Sisimiut]. I\u00a0went to a\u00a0technical high school, so all my friends wanted to become engineers or pilots. Around that time, I\u00a0became aware that [in Greenland] we don\u2019t know a\u00a0lot about our own culture. I\u00a0was already thinking back then that our language is very picture-based, so how can it translate when you become a\u00a0photographer? <\/p>\n
So you felt like photography was your way of communicating? <\/p>\n
IS: Mostly it was a\u00a0way of understanding myself. <\/p>\n
In 2015, you decided to move to New York. How was that? <\/p>\n
IS: To move to a\u00a0city like that was very scary in the beginning. I\u00a0was first in New Jersey, because when I\u00a0arrived I\u00a0had no place to stay. I\u00a0was lucky enough to meet a\u00a0person who loves Greenland and Greenlandic people. She let me stay with her until I\u00a0found a\u00a0place. <\/p>\n
You found people in New York to be \u200b\u201cbrutally honest\u201d. Does that differ a\u00a0lot from Sisimiut? <\/p>\n
IS: No, my hometown is like that, too. People are known to have an opinion. But New York is man-made, very artificial and very brutal, in a\u00a0good way. I\u00a0still loved New York, but I\u00a0missed the sky \u2013 we have a\u00a0lot of sky here in Greenland. We don\u2019t have trees. I\u2019m not good at waking up early, but I\u00a0was waking up for sunrise just to feel connected to nature. <\/p>\n
You\u2019ve previously said that when you left Greenland, you realised how important your culture was to you. <\/p>\n
IS: When I\u00a0was around 17, I\u00a0moved to San Diego, California. I\u00a0went to a\u00a0language school with a\u00a0lot of young people from around the world. Of course they had questions about Greenland and Greenlandic culture. I\u2019m from somewhere that is very different from most other places. But I\u00a0realised I\u00a0didn\u2019t know a\u00a0lot about my country or my culture, so I\u00a0felt like we were losing that connection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You first picked up the camera when you were a\u00a0kid, taking what you\u2019ve described as \u200b\u201ccrooked\u201d photos on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15063,57,4399,4447],"class_list":{"0":"post-43379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-greenland","8":"tag-face","9":"tag-greenland","10":"tag-magazine","11":"tag-style"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116254503437669021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}