FRANKFURT.- Greenland – Not For Sale – Kalaallit Nunaat Forever is dedicated to a country undergoing enormous transformation and, like a magnifying glass, revealing the defining issues of our time. Through the cinematic works created by Beat Hächler and Gian Suhner and the activist art of Julie Hardenberg, German audiences encounter numerous facets of the reality of this country and its people through powerful visual worlds.

Greenland is currently at the center of geopolitical ambitions. Its military-strategic location, rare earth resources, and shipping routes opening due to climate change have accelerated political shifts. At the latest with the recent public statements made by the President of the United States, the question of political independence versus geopolitical interconnectedness has come forcefully into focus.

A long and painful process of decolonization and independence from Denmark also shapes Greenlandic debate, negotiated between tradition and Western consumer culture, between reckoning and recognition.

To this day, our Western image of Greenland is shaped by ideas of untouched Arctic nature, igloo romanticism, and prejudice. What do we in Germany really know about this country? What do we know about the people of Greenland, about nature, and about the interconnections between economy, environment, and culture? What do we know about the history of colonial violence? Which political powers lay claim to a country longing for independence?

Greenland is surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, six times the size of Germany, and in recent years has unwillingly become the focus of the world’s major powers. As global warming accelerates, previously frozen sea routes have become navigable and melting glaciers are exposing parts of the land’s surface. Its strategic position between Canada, the United States, Russia, and Europe fuels desires for dominance over maritime routes and access to abundant natural resources.

How do the people living there view these developments? Greenland’s approximately 57,000 inhabitants are currently experiencing an escalating geopolitical situation and find themselves at the center of international interests. How have feelings of cultural and national belonging shifted in response to recent geopolitical developments? What does it mean to preserve political independence and cultural identity amid growing media and political attention? Which art forms and music express the emotions of Greenland’s inhabitants, especially the younger generation?





Greenland is confronting the pressure of global transformations that affect people similarly in many regions of the world today. The many consequences of global warming, the economic interests of transnational corporations that exclude local populations, and geopolitical power ambitions are placing pressure on the country. Internally, shifts are emerging in the relationship between the state and its citizens as identity politics gains momentum.

Greenland – Not For Sale – Kalaallit Nunaat Forever is an exhibition in nine chapters. Julie Edel Hardenberg’s political art, the panoramic cinematic images, and Gian Suhner’s thirty video interviews create a portrait of a country and its people unlike any we have previously known.

Art as a Mirror of the Present

Julie Edel Hardenberg (Paneeraq) is an artist, writer, and activist. This marks the first presentation in Germany of the artist working between Nuuk and Copenhagen. Her investigations focus on the relationship between Greenland and Denmark, colonial structures, and the ways in which former external power has shifted inward into people themselves. She is currently examining the relationship between power and powerlessness in the context of colonization and its aftermath. She seeks signs and consequences of embodied experiences that colonialism has inscribed not only into the histories of geographic places, but also into the bodies of the people who inhabit them today. According to Hardenberg, this is where resistance must begin against cultural domination, invisibility, and forgetting.

Together with the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Julie Hardenberg has selected a comprehensive range of works from the past decades. This is the first major survey exhibition of one of Greenland’s and Scandinavia’s most influential artists.

Speaking with People in Greenland, Not About Them

The attitude and approach of the film team around Beat Hächler and Gian Suhner make Greenland – Not For Sale – Kalaallit Nunaat Forever a unique exhibition in which Greenlanders themselves raise their voices. The cinematic portraits open windows onto breathtaking landscapes, sensitively capturing impressions of life, connection, but also conflicts and divisions.

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“The exhibition offers a sensory journey into the kaleidoscopic narratives of a complex country,” says Franziska Nori, director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein. “‘Greenland – Not For Sale – Kalaallit Nunaat Forever’ is a bold exhibition that makes visible the tensions within current political developments. The works of the artist Julie Hardenberg, together with the intense cinematic panoramas and numerous interviews, take us into the reality of Greenland and create new insights and understanding of the country, its people, and its cultures. What once seemed distant comes closer and moves us.”

The Exhibition Tour

At the very beginning of the exhibition route, visitors receive their own headphones, allowing them to immerse themselves sensorially — acoustically and visually — in the unique landscapes. At every station — whether screen or projection — the headphones are plugged in to activate the multimedia content. Large-format landscape images in immersive double projections function as windows into Greenlandic reality. Thirty interviews give voice to individuals who illuminate specific topics through their personal experiences and professional expertise, deepening the understanding of the challenges tied to our time. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring numerous images and additional texts.

Intro — Ground Floor

Visitors are welcomed at the beginning of the exhibition by a nine-channel video installation. Accompanied by the sound of Greenlandic rapper Tarrak, the exhibition themes are condensed into an impressive image collage.

Room 1: Climate Change in the Ice Laboratory — First Floor, Foyer

In the first room, visitors look into the laboratory of the Department of Climate and Environmental Physics at the University of Bern. The film shows cold storage rooms and ice cores, emergency generators protecting against power outages, and air gas analysis machines. We encounter the archive where deep-frozen ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica are analyzed. Currently, one cubic kilometer of ice melts in Greenland every summer half-year, every day. Climate warming is three times more intense here.

Interviews with:
Chantal Zeppenfeld: Research in laboratory and field (PhD student)
Prof. emer. Thomas Stocker: Climate research and politics
Prof. Hubertus Fischer: Head of Environmental and Climate Physics Department

Room 2: Life in the Village — First Floor, Right Wing

A large-scale double projection immerses visitors in the world of Kullorsuaq, a village in the far north. Around 400 people live from fishing and hunting. Internationally traded halibut is caught here using traditional methods and stored in the village’s cold storage facility. There is internet, Netflix, and Coca-Cola, yet state investment in village infrastructure remains scarce. The tourism boom from the south has not reached this place. During summer, supply ships deliver food. Air Greenland flies to Kullorsuaq two to three times a week. Village life takes place in clubs, at school, and in nature.

Interviews with:
Atsiannaguaq Olsen: Student and musician
Justine H. Olsen: Tailor
Jonas Kristinsen: Hunter and champion dog-sled racer
Martin Olsen: Municipal worker and hunter
Meqo Jensen: Headmistress and teacher
Brigitta Kammann Danielsen: Social worker and teacher originally from Germany

Room 2: Living and Working in Nuuk — First Floor, Right Wing

Nuuk is a boomtown. Impressions of city life are presented through impressive imagery in a large double projection. Around 20,000 people live in Nuuk, more than one-third of Greenland’s total population. The capital has a university campus with around 700 students, government buildings, and — unlike anywhere else in Greenland — large apartment blocks. Many move to the capital for work or because their villages were closed in the 1970s and residents forcibly relocated as part of Danish assimilation policies. Nuuk is also the place where Danish influence is most strongly felt and where Greenlanders achieved recognition of Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) as an official language and of their distinct identity.

Interviews with:
Seqininnguaq Qitura Hansen: Artist and activist
Merete Lindstrøm: Media spokesperson for “Royal Greenland”
Svend Hardenberg: Entrepreneur, politician, and actor
Inunnguaq Petrussen: Musician and political advisor
Aka Niviâna Mørch Pedersen: Actress and returnee to Greenland
Kim Jakobsen: Rapper and life coach
Arny Morgensen and Mala Johnsen: Founders of the streetwear brand “Bolt Lamar”
Qupanuk Olsen: Mining engineer and influencer
Nivi Christensen: Curator, former director of Nuuk Art Museum

Room 3: Julie Edel Hardenberg (Paneeraq) – Contemporary Art — First Floor, Left Wing

A survey exhibition is dedicated to the contemporary artist’s work, presented in Germany for the first time. Hardenberg uses national symbols such as the flags of Greenland and Denmark, sewing into them culturally attributed black or blond hair. The significance of language — including minority languages — repeatedly forms a central theme in her work. Language carries memory, history, and communal belonging. Programmatically, the artist fights against the loss and cultural overwriting of Kalaallisut as a space of belonging.

“My mother was born under the Danish flag – Dannebrog, while Greenland was a colony.
I was born under the Danish flag – Dannebrog, while Greenland was a Danish county.
My children were born under the Greenlandic flag – Erfalasorput, while we had Greenland Home Rule Government. Three generations. Three paradigms.“
– Julie Edel Hardenberg

Greenland Becomes Green Land — First Floor, Left Wing

The room expands into the subject of climate warming. This is dramatically transforming Greenland and its landscapes. In the southwest of the country, new possibilities for using newly ice-free land are emerging. The Agricultural School in Upernaviarsuk is experimenting with new cultivation methods. Vegetable farming, tree planting, and the cultivation of cold-resistant barley all have a future in Greenland. The country strives for increasing self-sufficiency from foreign imports.

Interviews with:
Ellen Frederiksen: Teacher, B&B host, and sheep farmer
Kim Neider: Agronomist and head of the experimental farm
Tupaarnaq Kreutzmann Kleist: Sheep farmer, hunter, and former ski racer

Room 4: Greenland Live — Second Floor, First Hall

This exhibition space is dedicated to the central role of music in Greenlandic cultural life. In various films, visitors listen to musicians who use rock and pop, polka sounds, hip-hop, rap, and traditional songs to tell stories about what Greenland is today. Music is an expression of identity awareness and often explicitly political. Although people on the west and east coasts do not speak the same language, music sung in Kalaallisut unites them. In the “Silent Disco,” musicians from Greenland speak through their art.

Room 5: Mining and Big Money — Second Floor, Last Hall

A large-scale film presents images of the massive mining activities planned in Greenland today. The dilemma of sustainable energy becomes evident in raw material extraction, which is globally necessary for manufacturing high-performance magnets and batteries for electric motors. Extraction causes enormous destruction of nature and landscapes. Greenland itself has only a few roads and hardly any wind turbines, yet possesses vast deposits of rare earth elements. The United States and Europe seek these resources to reduce dependence on China.

Interviews with:
Hans Hinrichsen: Head of Greenland School of Minerals & Petroleum
Mariane Paviasen: Politician and environmental activist
Malik Vahl Rasmussen: Greenland ice exporter
Naaja H. Nathanielsen: Greenlandic Minister for Mineral Resources
Greg Barnes: Geologist and investor, initiator of the Tanbreez project

Tourism Boom and Growth — Second Floor, Last Hall

What does tourism mean for Greenland? Cruise ships and flight connections bring visitors to Ilulissat, where the world’s largest icebergs drift through the Kangia Icefjord into Disko Bay. Since 2004, the bay has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To extend the airport runway from 800 meters to 2.2 kilometers, a mountain ridge was blasted away and the bay filled with millions of cubic meters of rock. The reopening of the expanded airport is scheduled for October 2026. The town is betting on economic growth. However, the growing number of tourists is causing increasing problems with waste and sewage disposal.

Interviews with:
Matthias Burkert and Matthias Hütter: German outdoor tourists
Flemming Bisgaard: Logistics entrepreneur
Nukaaka Lund-Mathæussen: Engineering student in building technology
Looqi Schmidt: Hunter and lecturer at the University of Social Pedagogy
Ulrik Amdi Sørensen: General manager of the four-star “Arctic” Hotel
Zhiling Xiong and Lu Jiao: Tourists from Boston, USA