Greenland Rising, an NGO, is mounting a Piseq contest to celebrate the character, culture, and toughness of Greenland's Kalaallit people, aiming to spotlight their accomplishments currently overshadowed by the machinations of Europe and America, according to co-founders Ivalu Kajussen and John Toomey. The contest involves creating videos of native peoples experiencing life transitions, such as birth, weddings, or Arctic Palerfik dogsled races, using AI tools like ChatGPT, Vibe, Pond5, Gemini, and Claude Cowork twice weekly. Contestants write sentences expressing the emotional essence of these videos, which Greenland Rising translates into Kalaallisut and formats as Piseqs with AI assistance, posting them in both languages to the group's Substack and to siku.org, the indigenous website for Inuit in Greenland, Canada, and the U.S.
Judges evaluate submissions, with winners honored by the Angakkoq Prize, named after the Kalaallit word for Shaman, emphasizing the cultural significance of this tradition. Historically, powerful piseqs emerged from song-poem duels used to resolve disputes non-violently, where disputants voiced insults in a poetry stand-off, with the loser determined by a tribal vote, granting the result permanent legal standing and becoming part of oral tradition. Greenland Rising advocates for Europe and the U.S. to adopt similar conflict resolution methods, highlighting the relevance of indigenous practices in contemporary global discourse. The initiative underscores the importance of preserving and promoting Kalaallit culture through modern technology and traditional art forms, as detailed in resources like Collections of Ammassalik Songs by Knud Rassmussen and Greenlandic Oral Traditions: Collection, Reframing, and Reinvention by Kirsten Thisted. By integrating AI with cultural heritage, the contest fosters resilience and identity among the Kalaallit, countering external influences and ensuring their stories are heard on platforms like theheroaward.substack.com/p/helping-greenland-and-you-too and siku.org.
