Arctic Festival Opening and Exhibition Opening

Opening of AF 2020 in Ústí n/L and opening of the following exhibitions (free entry):

• Corridor: „Sami fairy tales and legends / Illustrations by Luboš Drtina“
  Just Knud Qvigstad (1853–1957) collected many myths, legends and fairy tales from Lapland, which he translated from Sámi into Norwegian. The Norwegian version of his book by Brita Pollan entitled “The Sámi Tell Stories” became the basis for the Czech translation by Viola Somogyi and Zdeněk Lyčka. The book entitled “The Man Who Bought Himself an Itch” (Argo 2006), illustrated by Luboš Drtina, preserves the division of stories as they are often depicted on shamanic drums: stories from an alien world (fight, erotica, contact with the devil), stories from the near world (family, neighbours, shamans, animals, signs of death, the clash of old and new times, etc.) and stories about the dead (corpses, fugitives).
  
• Clubroom: „Igimarasussuk who ate his wives / Inuit legends through the eyes of Aaron Kangermio“
  The collection of Inuit legends is accompanied by illustrations by Aaron Kangermio (1822–1869), the Greenlandic artist who as the very first portrayed these harsh stories from the perspective of the indigenous people of the Arctic. The greatest advantage of the book “Igimarasussuk, who ate his wives” (Argo 2016) in the Czech translation by Zdeněk Lyčka is the maximally authentic depiction of Greenlandic oral narratives, not from the outside, but through the eyes of a native observer.
  
• Corridor: Photo exhibition “Canada’s Arctic – Vibrant and Thriving”
  Life and landscape of Canadian Arctic through the lens of Canadian photographers. The collection is a result of cooperation between Canadian Geographic magazine and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Photographed areas: Yukon, Northwest Territories, Labrador, Nunavut, Beauford Sea. Photographers: Peter Mather, Patrick Kane, Chris Sampson, Michelle Valberg, Bertrand Lemeunier, Doug Barber/ArcticNet, David Kilabuk.

Film loop on a monitor:

• “Southern Bering Sea Animals” (2019)
  The photographic video presentation of the Czech-American Stanislav Chládek is the result of several years’ observing the fauna during his sea kayak expeditions to the Aleutian Islands, the south border of Bering Sea. In 2016, the author also visited Katmai National Park in Alaska, where he mainly photographed grizzly bears catching salmon. In 2015, he spent a week on the deserted Round Island, Bristol Bay in Bering Sea watching walruses, sea lions and seabirds.

(all until 27/6/2021)

Photographs from the opening (photo Vladimír Cettl)

(From left: Václav Houfek, director of the Museum, Robert Kvile, Ambassador of Norway to the Czech Republic, Richard Pokorný, head of the Department of the Environment at UJEP and director of Julius von Payer Institute, Josef Elster, founder of the Centre for Polar Ecology at the University of South Bohemia and Miroslav Wanek, frontman of the music group Už jsme doma)

(Live entry to the Festival opening via Skype: Jan Pechar from Julius Payer House at Longyearbyen, part of the Czech Arctic Science Station “Josef Svoboda” in Svalbard)

(Zdeněk Lyčka, coordinator of the Arctic Festival 2020 – in Greenlandic national costume)