Visual artist, performer, and poet, born in Upernavik (Greenland) in 1959.
Jessie Kleemann, also known as (Marie) Jessie Kleemann, was born Jensigne Marie Kristensen on November 6th, 1959 in the town of Upernavik on the west coast of Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat). She is the daughter of Arkaluk Kleemann, a machinist and fisherman, and Vilhelima Kristensen, a seamstress, and adopted the name Jessie Kleemann in 1978. She studied theatre from 1978 to 1979 at Tûkak Theater (Tûūkak Teatret; now Tuukkaq Teatret) in Fjaltring, Denmark, then printmaking and lithography at the Graphic Workshop (Grafisk Værksted; now Greenland School of Art, Eqqumiitsuliornermik Ilinniarfinngorluni) in Nuuk (Greenland) from 1979 to 1980. She also went on study trips to Canada and to the Norwegian part of Sápmi between 1980 and 1983. In Sápmi, she met several artists from the Sámi group Mázejoavko (also known as the Masi group), known for their artistic involvement in Indigenous struggles for the protection of land rights and resources. Their mobilization against the Alta hydropower plant in Norway and for Indigenous rights deeply influenced Jessie Kleemann’s art.
Jessie Kleemann then conveyed the inspiration and skills acquired during her formative years to artists in her native country. She directed the Greenland Art School (formerly the Graphic Workshop) from 1984 to 1991 and co-founded several artists’ associations, including the Greenland Actors’ Association (Grønlands Skuespillerforbund) in 1984. Between 1991 and 1993, Jessie Kleemann also coordinated the UNESCO Arts from the Arctic project for the First International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In 1995, she co-founded the Greenland Young Artists’ Association (Sammenslutningen Mellem Unge Kunstnere) and the KIMIK association, which acts as an artists’ union, manages a studio and workshop in Nuuk, and organizes exhibitions. Her first poetry collection, Taallat, Digte, Poems, published in 1997, displays a modern and intimate tone. Its provocative and innovative nature sparked some controversy upon its release, as both the poems and the illustrations, created by Jessie Kleemann herself, shocked Greenlandic critics. The collection is written in Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Danish, and English, allowing Jessie Kleemann to raise issues of translation and interculturality. Since 2002, she has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, while remaining active in the Greenlandic arts scene. She organized several poetry festivals in Nuuk from 2004 to 2006 and is a longtime member of the Greenlandic Authors’ Association (Kalaallit Atuakkiortut).
In 2012, a monograph on Jessie Kleemann, co-authored by the artist herself and by Iben Mondrup, was published in Denmark under the title Jessie Kleemann. Qivittoq. The book explores Jessie Kleemann’s artistic universe through the qivittoq, an Inuit figure which is a recurring theme in her work. In Inuit cosmology, the qivittoq is a character who is either cast out from their community or who turns to a solitary life in nature. Sometimes associated with resilience and survival in a harsh environment, this figure is part of oral tradition and appears in contemporary Greenlandic literature, such as in Homo Sapienne (2014) by Niviaq Korneliussen. Richly illustrated, the monograph includes numerous photographs of Jessie Kleemann’s performances, her preparations, and her artwork.
A pioneer of video performance in Greenland, Jessie Kleemann created and presented the country’s first video installation, titled KINAASUNGA (literally: “Who I am Who I am”), in 1988. A poem of the same title is recited in the video and was later included in her collection Tallat, Digte, Poems. Since then, she has created 16 video performances and participated in over 30 exhibitions in North America and in Europe. She frequently uses her body as the primary material in her work in order to explore themes such as Greenlandic identity, colonialism, tradition, land, and language, often within the context of the complex cultural relationship between Greenland and Denmark. Jessie Kleemann also concerns herself with climate issues, which play a key role in her art. In 2023, she was invited to COP28 in Dubai to present her video performance Arkhticós Dolorôs, created in 2019 in the ablation zone of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier in the Ilulissat region (Greenland). She was one of the first artists to reinterpret the myth of Sedna, the Mother of the Sea, as a modern symbol of pollution and environmental crisis. In Arkhticós Dolorôs, which tackles the relationship between humanity and nature, this figure is reinterpreted in a new symbolic form, a “creature of the cold” representing the inua (the spirit or soul) of ice and glaciers. The performance illustrates the suffering of the Arctic and expresses the collective suffering produced by climate change. This performance led to the publication, in 2021, of a trilingual (Kalaallisut, Danish, English) poetry collection, also titled Arkhticós Dolorôs. Combining humor and gravity, these poems address the pain of the Arctic, the experience of its colonized peoples, Greenland’s unique geopolitical situation, and global warming. While literature and art addressing environmental issues are not widely popular in Greenland, some other authors also touch on these themes, such as Lana Hansen in Sila, a fable about climate change (2009). However, these issues are attracting growing international interest, situating Jessie Kleemann within a global literary and artistic movement concerned with these questions.
Among Jessie Kleeman’s major works, the installation Orsoq, presented at the Liverpool Biennial in 2012, stood out for its reflection on orsoq (blubber or seal fat), a staple of the traditional Inuit diet which also became a prized commodity in Denmark, England, and Portugal in 18th and 19th centuries, when it was used as lamp fuel. Orsoq, composed of glass bottles filled with blubber suspended on a wooden structure, addressed both the stigmatization of traditional practices and Greenland’s colonial history. In 2020, this work was acquired by the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst; Copenhagen) and is now part of their collection. Jessie Kleemann has used orsoq in numerous performances since 2005. In 2015, she collaborated with Danish filmmaker Ivalo Frank in the context of an exhibition at the Nuuk Art Museum (Nuummi Eqqumiitsulianik Saqqummersitsivimmilu) and in the creation of a short film, Killer Bird, which explores acceptance of the past and mechanisms of reconciliation with it and with oneself. This film combines Jessie Kleeman’s poetry with Ivalo Frank’s visuals.
Jessie Kleemann was one of 90 Inuit artists selected for the INUA exhibition (2021-2023) at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, which boasts the world’s largest exhibition space dedicated to Inuit art and culture. In 2023, two Danish museums dedicated solo exhibitions to her work: the Rønnebæksholm, in Næstved, Denmark, with Lá. Læ. Likkja. Magna (literally: “Laying. Poison. Corpse. Witchcraft”), focusing on her work on paper; and the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen, with Tiden løber løber tiden (Running Time), a retrospective showcasing her sculptures and performances. An exhibition booklet of the same name was subsequently published.
Jessie Kleemann has received numerous honors over the course of her career. In 2022, she was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize for Arkhticós Dolorôs. She was then selected for the 2022-2023 Artistic Practice program at the Art Hub Copenhagen, allowing her to share her work with an international audience. In 2023, she received a three-year grant from the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond) and, in 2024, she was awarded the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Foundation’s Honorary Prize for her artistic talent. That same year, she also received the prestigious Eckersberg Medal from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for her entire body of work.
Jessie Kleemann is a central figure of contemporary art, thanks to her key role in exploring Inuit identities and Greenlandic cultural heritage. Her work is anchored in current global debates on colonization, the environment, and climate change, oscillating between traditional Inuit artistic practices like mask dancing and experimental forms of performance that engage her own body and elements loaded with cultural and historical significance for the Inuit, such as blubber, beads, and a holistic relation to territory. This integration of different practices makes her art fertile ground for reflecting on the complex relationship of the Inuit people with their past and present.
Jessie Kleemann Performance artist and poet from Greenland. Interview with Daniel Chartier
Arkhticós Dolorôs read by Greenlandic artist Jessie Kleemann