EUROPA 2022 – Stories and Myths – Greenland 2022
Europa – Stories and Myths
This year’s two Greenlandic stamps issued in PostEurop’s annual EUROPA series are based on the common theme ‘Stories and Myths’. The task of illustrating the stamps fell to Aka Høegh, one of Greenland’s most significant living artists. Concerning her two stamps, she says:
“The first stamp symbolises Inuit narratives in a broader sense. I have drawn two mask-like faces to represent that our stories are told and passed on. The book is open to let the stories come out. In creating the design, I cut from an old history book with old orthography, as a form of talking flower that grows.
The second stamp depicts a myth about the children between the willow twigs. After Earth came into being, humans appeared. It is said that the little children came forth out of the earth between the willow bushes, covered in willow leaves. Then they lay there with their eyes closed, between the bushes, squirming. Then the children crawled around and ate of willow twigs and of the soil. This is an Inuit narrative of the genesis of man.”
Aka Høegh was born on 16th December 1947 in the mining town of Qullissat. In 1976 she married the Latvian artist, writer and photographer Ivars Silis (born 1940). These two stamps are Aka Høegh’s 24th and 25th for Tusass Greenland since her stamp debut in 1985.
Stamp Digest 