Qamutit: Greenland Sled Portraits

Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum & Arctic Studies Center Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum & Arctic Studies Center

Exhibition: Qamutit: Greenland Sled Portraits

Dates:

Location:

Virtual Exhibition
Photos by award-winning photographer Rhea Banker. In evocative photos of Greenland dog sleds on summer landscapes, photographer Rhea Banker reflects on this vital form of Inuit transportation, now threatened by the ongoing loss of winter sea ice.

As these borders change, as the earth lifts and seas melt, the nature of journey, survival and community change as well. Greenlandic sleds, qamutit, are a fundamental part of this changing landscape and way of life — weathered witnesses to a culture at risk, perched precariously between the past and the future.

Virtual Exhibit

Selected Works

Photo by Rhea Banker named Stacks and Storage

© Rhea Banker. Stacks and Storage. The heart of this story lies not just within the incredible sled dogs who have been the power of journey and survival, but within the details of the sleds themselves. Handmade of wood, rope, and ancient tradition, they remain, for now, a part of settlement life. They stand sandwiched between seasons, between collapse and renewal, between old ways and new.

Photo by Rhea Banker named Sitting in Mist

© Rhea Banker. Sitting in Mist. Whether it is a stone's shape, a burst of pink granite amidst gray, or a reflection in a mountain's hidden lake, a portrait of Greenland is found in details of place, of people, and in ways of life. This collection of images is a small portrait of sleds in a vast landscape, a landscape and culture perched on the edge of a changing world and an unknown future.

Multimedia

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Brunswick, ME 04011
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255 Maine Street
Brunswick, Maine 04011
 (207) 725-3000