DON’’T TOUCH ME; OIL AND AMULETS; WITHOUT CONSENT WITH CONCENT Installation underwear (2019) - Eqqumiitsuliaq Arnanut iluatigut atisat

Don’t touch me, 2019
Undergarments, teeth from beluga whale, silver thread Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu, Courtesy Greenland National Museum.

Without consent – with consent, 2019
Garter belt, beads from walrus tooth and cow’s bones, mother-of-pearl buttons Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu. Courtesy Greenland National Museum

Oil and amulets, 2019
Bra, amulets of walrus teeth, beads from cow’s bones, seal claws. Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu. Courtesy Greenland National Museum

Clothes play a major symbolic role in Jessie Kleemann’s performances. This also holds true in this installation, where clothes become symbols of the Greenlandic body. Three pieces of artistically reworked underwear hang on a clothes line. The three works are Kleemann’s response to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland in August 2019.

The titles of two of the works take as their starting point sexually charged metaphors of assault and rape. One work, Don’t touch me, consists of a pair of panties from which eight teeth from a beluga whale protrude menacingly like a vagina dentata – a vagina with teeth. In folklore, tales of such biting vaginas were supposed to deter men from getting involved with strange women and prevent rape. The second work of art is a garter belt with a chain of beads made from walrus teeth and cow bones, fastened with a mother-of-pearl button at the front and back like a thong. Entitled Without consent – with consent, the work points to a relationship characterised simultaneously by resistance and mutual exchanges.

The third work, Oil and Amulets, consists of a bra with sewn-on amulets made of walrus teeth, cow bones and a row of seal claws underneath each of the cups. The work refers to the as-yet unexhausted stock of oil which, many speculate, is to be found beneath the surface of Greenland. The use of amulets is deeply personal to Inuit people, and the pieces are often hidden beneath clothing – just as oil is hidden away deep underground.

Courtesy: Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqatfialu, National Museum of Greenland

Photography: Jakob Skou-Hansen
The Nuilarmiut Takisuut/ The Beaded dress and next to the image of an installation in three parts, don’t touch me; oil and amulets; without consent with consent, at the Nuuk Art Museum exhibit 2019.