Unfinished Histories

Unfinished Histories: Art, Memory, and the Visual Politics of Coloniality reveals how art and visual culture shape and challenge the unfinished legacies of Nordic colonialism

The anthology situates itself in the context of contemporary geopolitical interest in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) while tracing historical connections back to Denmark’s 1917 sale of the Danish West Indies to the United States—a transaction that simultaneously secured American support for Denmark’s sovereignty claims over Greenland. By linking these historical and contemporary moments, the book highlights how colonial entanglements between Denmark, the US, the Caribbean, and the Arctic continue to influence political and cultural landscapes today. Unfinished Histories brings together scholars, curators, and artists from Scandinavia, the Caribbean, the Arctic, and West Africa in a rich interdisciplinary dialogue on the visual politics of coloniality. Through scholarly essays, interviews, and visual contributions, it explores how monuments, archives, and institutions shape public memory and how artistic interventions can resist, critique, and reframe colonial histories.

Distributed for Aarhus University Press