Asiaq – Greenland Survey

Asiaq operates all over Greenland, undertaking a wide variety of activities concerning the physical, non-living environment.
Asiaq’s responsibilities include; mapping, geographic information, hydrology, climate, environment, and surveying and geotechnical investigation. Their Workshop maintains a network of climate stations distributed all over Greenland for the purpose of local monitoring and international collaboration.

Look also into NunaGIS, which is a digital atlas displaying maps over Greenland. On top of the maps you can display geographical information themes such as bird colonies and sensitive areas, GPS monitored caribous north of Nuuk, hunting districts, historic buildings, territorial boundaries of Greenland and lots of other themes.

Thursday in Nuuk, we will meet Karl Brix Zinglersen and Mätzler Eva from Asiaq. They will among other things talk with us about Asiaq, mapping, WebGIS, geology, geotechnical / geophysical / soil analysis, MapInfo GIS, and Remote Sensing

PROGRAMME // NUUK GREENLAND TRIP AHO // 02.03.10 – 08.03.10

TUESDAY // 02.03.10
09.10 // Departure Copenhagen, be at the airport 2 hours before departure
14.30 // Arrival Nuuk
Resident address: Group up for four apartments, this will also be the working teams for the whole week
Time // Introduction at the university, which is our base (with all facilities)
Time // Dinner // Nuuk

WEDNESDAY // 03.03.10
10.00 // Morning dialogue // Nuuk Voices
12.00 // Lunch
Time // NUUK CITY WALK // Filming, photo, drawing, observing (the mythos of Blok P and more)
15.00 // Jørgen Chemnitz in his home, journalist, writer photographer
Time // Dinner // Nuuk
20.00 // Lecture // Øystein Rø 0047

THURSDAY // 04.03.10
09.00 // ASIAQ, mapping Greenland
10.15 // Morning dialogue // Nuuk voices
Time // Lunch
Afternoon // Work

FRIDAY // 05.03.10
09.00 // Morning dialogue
Morning // Work
Time // Lunch
Time // Deadline work
15.30 // Inspired presentation at GrønlandsBanken for the sponsors of our journey
Time // Exhibition at Katuaq // Pia Arke

SATURDAY // 06.03.10
Morning // Free
Afternoon // Boattrip
Evening // Event

SUNDAY // 07.03.10
12-16 // Public discussion at Katuaq about Pia Arkes work, and more

MONDAY // 08.03.10
Time // Departure Nuuk

Inuit tactile maps

Yesterday two of our friends tipt us simultaniously about a blogpost on BLDGBLOG about Inuit tactile maps of the Greenland coastline. Marianne Skjulhaug called from Bergen and Ross Langdon sent a mail from Uganda (!). Follow the link and learn more. It is truly intriguing.

The carving is 300 years old and shows the coastline with fjords, islands, nunataks and glaciers. The outline of the coast is carried up one side and down the other.


Aviaaja and Helena from tnt nuuk is arriving in Tromsø today. We are sure they can tell us more about these maps and maybee we can see them for ourselves when we go to Nuuk...

"A completely new life"

Before Christmas I read this interesting article in Aftenposten about the situation on Greenland. I think this was a good introduction to this country of opportunities. The head- title is “A completely new life”. The children of Greenland have to search for new livings in the future because the urbanization still will go on in the country and there is no need for more workers and farmers. The melting of the ice in the arctic and the well- known housing- project in Nuuk is also mentioned.

Elisabeth

>pdf

GREENLAND: A window of opportunity - NOW

Dear students
WE can now go on a study tour to Greenland! The fantastic Aviaaja Karlshøj here in Greenland have managed to get ca 90 000 DKR in support for our studio, to go to Greenland and the capital Nuuk. A lot of institutions here are supporting your travel, and they all want you to take part in the Appearing Nuuk concept.
The journalist Jörgen Chemnitz said that Geenland now as opened a window of opportunity, an that it is a call for action in the next five years. With a new Self Government a completely new situatation is established. You are now invited to take part in this.
We will leave from Copenhagen Tuesday the 2. of Mars in the morning, and return Monday the 8. of Mars.
We are holding at least 20 tickets with the travelling büreau until Monday at ca 13.00. To get ok prizes you have to decide NOW. With the economic support, and free housing here in Nuuk, your total costs, including travel from Oslo to Copenhagen will be maximum 4000 NKR, and it may be less because more support may appear. Aviaaja is working hard on it. So a once in a lifetime journey is open for you, following in teh path of the Jæren Viking Eirik Raude.
So contact Alice, be at the school monday morning - an the Greenland journey will take place.
From Knut Eirik and Kjerstin on a beautifull sunny Saturday. We are now going on a Nuuk Safari with a lot of people, debating Nuuk and Greenland futures.

nunarsuup qeqqani

A political project
Block P, built in 1965 is considered to be the foremost symbol of the Danish colonial era in Greenland. In the 1950s and 1960s, Danish officials closed half of the nearly 200 coastal villages and moved subsistence-dependent Greenlanders into large apartment "bloks" in a massive plan to develop a modern, commercial fishing economy. Block P, the largest apartment in Nuuk held when it was finished approximately 1 percent of Greenland's population, alone.
The self government’s new housing politics includes turning down the mega structures from the sixties and seventies which are suffering from bad maintenance. At the same time there is a big demand for new apartments. Nuuk is experiencing a building boom. It is hard to overlook the consequences of these changes in the heart of the city.
With a metaphor from agriculture, we can say that the challenge is to farm and process new realities without turning the soil. The matter of concern is not only built structures and big numbers; it is social structures, lived lives, relationships, attachments and the one in the great number.

Window of opportunity
It is a political sensitive project, Strong feelings comes when we are discussing the cultural impact of the area. But it is also an opportunity to introduce a new empathically urban development. The major of Nuuk, Asii Chemnitz Narup said on our first meeting with steering committee:"I love the area we are talking about; the atmosphere is somewhat Italian, with children playing around and laundry at the balconies. My mother lived there for 25 years. "...." People love the city center, even though the distances are short; it is a barrier to move outside the city center."

In the midle of the world

Everybody’s eyes are on Greenland, the melting ice alone sets a searchlight on sustainable development in cities all over the world. In December 14th two alarming reports about climate change in the cryosphere were presented at COP 15. For the first time, leading international researchers have made an overview of snow and ice melting globally. The conclusions show that the snow-and ice-covered areas will disappear faster than previously thought. Al Goore and Jonas Gahr Støre presented the report Melting snow and ice-A call for action (made in Tromsø) and Dorte Dahl Jensen presented the report The Greenland Ice Sheet in a Changing Climate.

At the pressconference with Denmarks’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller and Greenland Premier Kuupik Kleist, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre, and researcher Dorte Dahl Jensen , it came up a really interesting discussion about Greenlands special position, located by the melting ice in a historical moment where they need to build up their own economy in order to get political freedom.

Kuupik Kleist stated; "Our society is lokated by the melting ice - but apart from that, we are like any other nation, we want to develop our industry and our society."