K-ARTNOW conducted a special written interview with Jessie Kleemann, a Greenland-born, Denmark-based artist participating in Kalaallit Illuutaat (Greenlandic House), a pavilion of the 16th Gwangju Biennale.
 
Colourful boots trace a path of coffee at Heekyungru. Jessie Kleemann’s installation Kamiit Walking (2026) uses 3D-printed replicas of kamiit inherited from her family. Through these boots, she reflects on the work of her ancestral foremothers and on how cultural memory lives on today.

1. What is the central question you hope to share through this presentation in Gwangju?
 
《Kamiit Walking》 begins with boots inherited from your family, inviting viewers to imagine the bodies that wore them and the lives lived in them. What do you hope audiences might come to see differently through this work?
 
I wanted to share that what we inherit is not only physical. A pair of kamiit, for example, can carry more than meets the eye. We inherit history. In this piece, one might say the work invites us to look at the unseen work of women, from an Inuit woman’s perspective. We walk the path and do the work as our ancestral foremothers did. Now we do it in this world. I somehow believe that it is all political: what we do, where we work and live, and who we are.
 
 
 
2. How do your artistic choices reflect your understanding of inheritance?
 
Transforming inherited boots into an artwork and placing them in a new setting involves deciding what to retain and what to change. Could you discuss a particularly important choice in developing the Gwangju installation, and how it relates to your understanding of inheritance?
 
When we replicate something, such as a piece of clothing or a part of it that has traditionally taken a particular form, we know we are continuing a tradition in the way it is expected to continue. In making this artwork, I wanted to take another look. I remembered my aunties’ work, particularly my mother’s, and how we Kalaallit Inuit women have changed things along the way, from colonial eras into postcolonial times.
 
I do not make the kamiit myself. Like many others in my generation, I had to pursue vocational training and education in other fields. We often inherited some of our most distinct cultural symbols, including traditional festive clothing, called the national dress in Danish. When these things still have a living function, it is difficult to negotiate their place in our lives.
 
So I decided to make 3D prints of the pair I inherited and place them on a path of coffee, like soil, as a nod to Soil for Scoresbysund by the late Pia Arke. By making this visual work as an installation, I point to an inheritance that is wider and closer to what comes to life through memory.
 
As a performance artist, I have used things connected to my culture many times. It is almost an inquiry in itself: have I inherited something tangible from my culture that is still alive, or have I inherited the symbols?

3. How has the recent international attention on Greenland affected the way your work is understood?
 
There can be a distance between how a place enters the international spotlight and how its people experience their own lives. In presenting Kamiit Walking in Gwangju, what would you most like audiences to understand beyond the current headlines?
 
Interest in and attention to Greenland have increased over time. This is not only a recent development, as some might think. We have been under pressure for a long time.
 
For a very long time, my work was seen as “my work.” I was another Greenlandic Kalaaleq artist, rather than someone expected to speak on behalf of others. At the same time, over the years I have spoken about and addressed our problematic relations with both colonizers. There are also questions that arise from working and living abroad. I have been lucky to meet and work with kindred souls over the years.
 
To say one thing about cultural migration, women are particularly exposed to prejudice and othering. Of course, this affects not only women but Kalaallit Inuit more generally. We share human lives, make connections, and create belonging.
 
 
 
4. How is the body present in this installation?
 
In your performances, your body encounters the audience directly; here, the boots and the path evoke bodies that remain unseen. Considering the installation alongside your opening performance, what possibilities do these different forms of bodily presence offer for exploring memory and personal self-determination?
 
The body is many bodies in one. Or the memories that carry the body multiply into many. We have an Inuit saying, “All things spirit,” meaning that everything has a living spirit.
 
Of course, a performance is often a single action, here and now. But it could also repeat itself many, many times, or suffer a silent death, left untouched and unspoken.
 
I think the performance will decide where it goes. I have only decided to be in it and share it; then it is free.
 
At some point, I cannot make “decisions” on behalf of the participants. Some would call them “spectators,” but when people come to see a performance, are they not actually participating? That is the beauty of it, and I am very grateful for that.

5. Where does the Biennale’s theme, “You Must Change Your Life,” intersect with your practice?
 
Having worked with the body, memory, and identity over many years, what does changing one’s life mean to you? Did presenting this work in Gwangju lead you to approach the theme differently?
 
I believe I try to do things differently, and above all I challenge myself, so the Biennale’s theme was perfect.
 
I do not know if I have changed that much. But the performance Kamiit Walking: Crossing the River connected with the theme by pointing to life and death through the act of crossing the river. We lost our father in 2013, and only recently have I started looking at his picture and talking to him regularly. “You must change your life!” Our mother is still with us; she is now 93. I know change must come, but at some point we also have to prepare for it.
 
I am working with the theme “Soul Beautify Thyself,” writing in response through poetry and chants. I have also started “singing” for it, which is a huge change in my practice.
 
Additional note from curator Amy E. Smith: Kleemann filmed a new piece at Heekyungru, Kamiit Walking: Crossing the River. It is an homage to her forebears who struggled and fought for social change, and a meditation on death and the power of cultural memory.

Additional Comments by Curator Amy E. Smith:
 
Kleemann filmed her new work, Kamiit Walking: Crossing the River, at Heekyeongnu Pavilion. The work is both a tribute to her ancestors who struggled and fought for social change and a meditation on death and the power of cultural memory.
 
 
 
6. Which encounter with an artwork or an audience in Gwangju has stayed with you most strongly? Please focus on a specific encounter. What did it prompt you to consider about the questions artists share today, or about how experiences from different places can meet?
 
The Taiwan Pavilion. There were many interesting and exciting art projects, artworks, and video installations.
 
At the Canadian Pavilion, Shelley Niro’s The Shirt stayed with me: “all you have left is a T-shirt.”
 
 
 
Curatorial Statement
 
Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen and Amy E. Smith
 
Jessie’s art practice felt so right for Gwangju. Her work, from the very beginning, has always been politically engaged around personal self-determination and national sovereignty. Her language as a performer, poet, and visual artist continually moves between past, present, and future. She is well positioned to carry on the Biennale’s commitment to honor the spirit of the May 18 Movement of 1980 while presenting experimental and innovative works that speak to the most pressing issues of the day. 〈Kamiit Walking〉 (2026) emerged during the pavilion’s development from a growing sense of urgency around the climate crisis and in response to the exhibition site, Heekyungru.
 
With 〈Kamiit Walking〉 (2026), the Kalaallit Illuutaat Pavilion examines coloniality and its present-day impact on individuals, communities, and environments. Its curatorial approach takes its cue from the Gwangju Biennale’s long-standing commitment to experimental and politically engaged work and furthers this year’s theme, You Must Change Your Life. The Biennale and the Kalaallit Illuutaat Pavilion propose that change is created through sustained actions by many. Jessie Kleemann’s installation and performance recognize those who carry traditional wisdom across generations while enacting social change.
 
 
 
About the Artist and Curators

Jessie Kleemann
 
Jessie Kleemann (b. 1959, Upernavik, Kalaallit Nunaat) works across video, performance, painting, and sculpture. For over four decades, she has examined questions of land, identity, body, language, memory, and both personal and national sovereignty. Pairing Kalaallit Inuit cultural practices with cutting-edge technology, Kleemann treats tradition and history as living tools rather than fixed inheritances—as available to her as any physical material. She approaches language in much the same way, moving fluidly between Kalaallisut, Danish, and English. Her own body remains central to her practice, alongside recurring materials such as coffee, beads, and blubber, whose role in shaping Inuit identity she persistently interrogates. Her critique of colonialism extends beyond people to encompass land and climate alike.

Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen
 
Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen (b.1990, Denmark) is an independent curator based in The Hague, Netherlands. With a dual background in art history and political science, she has organized solo exhibitions internationally at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, and Museum Beelden aan Zee, among others, focusing often on socially engaged practices and underrepresented perspectives.
 
 
 
Amy E Smith
 
Amy E. Smith (b. 1983, USA) is a curator based in Denver, Colorado. She has an MA in Art History from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Amy began her career in Seoul as an independent curator and founding member of Crazy Multiply Art Collective, along with time at Seoul Museum of Art, Arario Gallery, and Seoul Auction. She is the Public Art Project Manager for Adams County, collaborating with artists to develop site and community-specific installations and exhibitions in public spaces.