“Aja Ajaja” is not even a word. It’s a “nipi” as people say in Greenland, a sound that means much more than “just” a word. Or maybe it is a word without a meaning, an empty shell one can fill with different feelings, happy ones or sad ones. One person can start singing “Aja Ajaja” and eventually it will always turn into a chorus, because Greenland is always about many, not just one.
Rasmus Lyberth, a great Greenlandic singer and story-teller thinks that “Ajajajaja” also stands for the Greenlandic values that have been lost. All values in Greenland come from the sea ice. And ice is quickly disintegrating.
But no matter how hard things can be, there is always a Hope.
In Greenland everything is constantly on the move: dog-sleds, icebergs and people. Nothing is stagnant. Neither is Aja Ajaja.
Aja Ajaja is a portable art; it travels along with people, with their music, dance and lifestyle.
Aja Ajaja is a mobile exhibit. The pictures only seldom hang on the nails. Instead, they drifted through the crowd like sapphire icebergs – from country to country, from continent to continent.
Aja Ajaja travelled to NYC, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Moscow, Central Asia, Africa, Siberia, and to the top of the world - Qaanaaq, Greenland.
And along with people on the way it danced…
Ran marathons…
Met strangers…
And recognized each other…
It greeted the big city intellectuals…
And 80-year old Aksakals…
Recent immigrants from Guatemala at Corona Immigration Movement..
Ever shifting crew of INUK…
And explorers at The Explorers Club…
Courageous Horse-Riders – the Amazones of Central Asia…
And Eric and Susanne at Hotel Arctic…
Children of the most remote villages in Tyan Shan Mountains…
Soldiers…
And old people of 32 nationalities at Issyk Kul Center of Global Initiatives…
Children of reindeer herders in the small settlement on the Road to the Pole of Cold in Siberia
Community leaders and young people who live on top of the world - in Qaanaaq, Greenland
…and Ole Jorgen Hammeken..
..and Jaakuaraq…
Its journey to be continued…
Around the world of nomades.
In other words, Aja Ajaja is an Itinerary, a nomad… But it will never forget where it came from. It will never forget Ann and Jonna…
