Sikkorluppoq
Adam Sébire

An indigenous community in northern Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) spends half the year atop the frozen ocean. What happens when their sea ice is weakened by global heating? Produced in 2024 as part of a collaboration between Uummannaq Children’s Home in northwest Greenland and artist-filmmaker Adam Sébire from Arctic Norway, this is an extended teaser for a 15-minute film.

With the help of indigenous staff, the team collated a series of words in the local Kalaallisut dialect that described the difficulties posed by the changing sea-ice conditions around Uummannaq. This was not straightforward: as a polysynthetic language that has faced the colonial marginalisation common to many indigenous tongues, there were few official sources or agreed spellings in the local dialect. The children each chose a word, discussed its meaning, and, with Adam, decided how to film it.

The tool known as a tooq is used by Inuit hunters to test ice thickness and to make holes for fishing. Armed with tooqs, Adam filmed each child explaining their word and writing it into the ice; then, as an ensemble, they constructed the new word.

Interviews with Inuit elders and hunters who have longer memories of sea ice conditions are projected onto, and then re-filmed off the ice in a kind of “iceberg cinema.”

With summer sea-ice cover predicted to be lost from the High Arctic sometime between 2030 and 2050, the Inuit community’s winter traditions are already eroding. Are we witnessing the beginning of sikoqqinngisaannassooq – a future without sea ice?