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The Western rationalist perspective on qivittut (plural of qivittoq) risks categorizing encoutners with these beings as disruptions in bodily self-perception as a result of a prolonged exposure to either extreme or montonous conditions. It is, thus, using science to present qivittut as mere halluciantions. The Greenlandic narratives explain qivittut as former humans who escaped their community after a severe rupture (anger, shame, disagreement etc.) In isolation they turned into immortal beings endowed with superpowers. Encounters with them are to be avoided. The concept of qivittoq is a persisting element of Greenlandic culture, it is still being preserved in the consciousness of Greenlanders, although, going qivittoq is an extinct practice. With colonization it has been prohibited. However, the contemporary schisms in societies give rise to new qivittut not only from Greenland, populating the conutry's remote areas. In the context of current attempts to colonize Greenland qivittoq - "a state that constantly changes with time and place" in the words of the Greenlandic artist Jessie Kleemann - seems to take on new forms.
- Jozef Eduard Masarik is an art practitioner and theoretician dealing with the issues surrounding our embodiment and its relatedness to its surrounding environments. Fieldwork has taken me to Greenland, recently. I have explored the interweaving of terroir, perception and clashes between indigenous and colonizer cultures. The work inspired my further research in embodied epistemologies of remoteness. My previous research on identity, embodiment, technology and knowledge production has re-centered its focus from mainland to island, from the central issues to the peripheral. The peripheral, thus, becomes a laboratory for thinking through artistic practice.