If you do not know much about Greenland it is easy to imagine many things about this remote country. For example, it is not uncommon that Greenlandic people are asked if they still live in igloos.



Julie Edel Hardenberg (1971-) is mainly known for her comprehensive book of photo art entitled 'The Quiet Diversity'. The book is a photographic journey around Greenland, where Hardenberg has photographed the people she has met along the way, as well as their homes and surroundings.

With her book Hardenberg displays just how varied and manifold the Greenlandic population is. In fact, you find mulattos in the traditional Greenlandic dress, Greenlandic people with blue eyes as well as French and Russian Greenlanders. All of these different people do of course not reside in igloos but live in houses and modern blocks of flats. They arrange their rooms with leather coaches and flat screen TV's, just like the rest of us.

Hardenberg's mission is to fight against existing, negative prejudice about Greenlandic people, and she has succeeded at this. 'The Quiet Diversity' is much appreciated wherever it is shown.

Another important piece by Hardenberg is 'Rigsfælleskabspause' (the break of the Danish Commonwealth.) The work of art is made as a straitjacket where the front and back respectively represent the Greenlandic and the Danish flag. The piece is a comment to the development policy that has been conducted in Greenland. In a tension field between Greenlandic and Danish culture, the Greenlandic identity has been put to the test. First you had to be Greenlandic. Later, you had to know about Danish culture and then again return to some of the things that Greenland used to be.  According to Hardenberg, this has caused many Greenlandic people to feel torn between the two cultures.