Exhibition
Greenland
An der Eiskante - Unterwegs in Nordgrönland
From early till late spring, I went to North Greenland, Qaanaaq, for a documentary film about The Hunters of Greenland. This was in cooperation with the NONAM museum in Zurich, which sent the Photographer Markus Bühler, who is my father, and me to the top of the world to make an exhibition about a hunter and his son who wants to become a hunter too. Having grown up with my father, who has been documenting the Inuit for three decades, I had an early fantasy about this romantic place. Finally, I had the chance to meet these noble hunters.
With my camera and a lot, a lot of clothes, we drove with dog sledges to the ice edge. The cracking sound of the snow and the dogs drove us through the unimaginable beauty of the Arctic ice. Passing gigantic icebergs that pop out from the never-ending horizon. Until we arrived at the edge.
We set up an unbearable, uncomfortable camp, which yet seemed like it was the idyll of relaxation. Two dog sledges with some fur on top of them. So simple.
And then we waited, and waited, and then… we waited some more. For days, without night, we watched the ocean dance, hoping to see a narwhal or a seal. In Greenland, they have a word which shapes their Philosophy. “Imaaqa”. It translates to something like maybe. The understanding that everything is possible and can happen at any moment. Nothing is for sure. Maybe they will catch something, maybe they won’t. Maybe they will sit here for days without anything happening. It is all possible. They even call their Airway Imaaqa-airways because you never know if they come or don’t because of a storm. This allows the place to relax and blend into nature, unlike anything ever before. Not once was I bored on the ice, although the situation had every similarity to a totally and utterly boring situation.
And finally, after a few days, they caught a Narwhal, and a spectacle unfolded in front of me. We went on the ice many times. The sun would never go down, and if we couldn’t see it, it was because it was behind the clouds of a tormenting storm that ripped the whole camp apart. An adventure unlike anything I have ever seen in my life.
This film is so far my most personal and honest film. The exhibition At The Ice Edge – Revisiting Northgreenland (An der Eiskante – Unterwegs in Nordgrönland) shows the story told through Photographs by Markus Bühler and told through a young perspective by the film The Hunters of Greenland by Nils Bühler. The exhibition in the museum NONAM in Zürich is open till July 2026.
