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Ciclotrama 347 (amulet)

EXHIBITION

Amulet

CURATOR

Andreas Hoffmann

SERIES

YEAR

2024

LOCATION

Ilulissat Kunstmuseum,
Ilulissat, Greenland

MATERIALS

Ropes and fishing nets

DIMENSION

0.65 x 6 x 6 m

CREDITS

Photo: Atelier Mello Landini

ABOUT THIS WORK

Text by Janaina Mello Landini

In Greenlandic Inuit cosmology, the tupilak was an invisible and feared entity, created in secret by shamans (angakkuit). By binding together bones, skins, and sinew, they gave physical form to a directional magical force. Yet the legend holds a fascinating detail: a tupilak would only fail if the person it targeted possessed an even stronger magical protection. In such cases, the energy of the attack could not penetrate and ended up turning back against the creator themselves. It was with this dynamic of forces, attacks, and shields in mind that I developed this new Cyclorama, created during my artistic residency in Ilulissat, Greenland. If the ancestral tupilaq was activated by the purpose of the person who bound it, mine was constructed from remnants of fishing nets, kindly donated by local marine supply stores. I tied, untangled, and tensioned each of these threads with an urgent intention: to create this "stronger protection" against a contemporary monster. The goal is to ward off the microplastics that today, invisibly, intoxicate the waters and all of us—a modern spell that is turning back against its own creators. In this work, the fishing net ceases to be an instrument of capture or pollution and becomes an amulet. It is the thread operating at its limit—structuring the visible in an attempt to contain, repel, and protect us from the threat of the invisible.
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