AILSA CHANG, HOST:

There is a debate playing out in Greenland, sparked by President Trump's ambition to take the island. It's about power, sovereignty and control. Those are also issues explored in an exhibit at a museum in Nuuk, Greenland's capital. Our cohost Juana Summers takes us there.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The first thing I hear is the sound of a siren...

(SOUNDBITE OF SIREN BLARING)

SUMMERS: ...The sound echoing through the room. There's a TV screen with a recruitment video in front of me. I read the subtitles loud.

(Reading) And now, as we sleep, the world is closing in. There is no use in hiding. But don't despair. There is a solution. Defend your country against the world invasion. Join the Greenlandic forces.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SUMMERS: The walls of this museum are covered with posters. There are olive green fatigues and military jackets with the logo of the Greenlandic army. Greenland, though, doesn't have its own army.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SUMMERS: All of this is art - a collaboration between a Danish artist, Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen and a Greenlandic artist, Inuk Silis Hoegh.

So we're on the second floor of the exhibit now. We're walking into this green, fairly modest tent where there's a video that showed what would have happened if we were enlisting in this fictional Greenlandic military. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF DRUMMING)

SUMMERS: This exhibit is called "Melting Barricades." We're seeing it today inside a big, white-walled room in the Nuuk Art Museum. But these pieces are derived from this massive performance piece that was staged in the heart of the city.

NIVI CHRISTENSEN: Suddenly, there was a whole military action in the center of Nuuk. And everybody was like, why are these people here?

SUMMERS: This is Nivi Christensen, the museum's director. She said some people believed it was real.

CHRISTENSEN: The politicians actually called the Danish government to be, like, why do you have a military action in the center of Nuuk? Why haven't you announced that there is a huge military? And they were like, we don't know. There wasn't supposed to be a military action.

SUMMERS: This performance piece made the front page of newspapers in Greenland. Reprints of some of those newspapers are on the walls, along with images of the artists in military attire. They are driving around in a tank with the red-and-white Greenlandic flag billowing behind them.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Through megaphone) Greenlandic citizens, remain calm and cool.

SUMMERS: It would be easy to think that this is all the artists' response to President Trump's recent rhetoric. But this exhibit is actually more than two decades old. It was created in 2004.

CHRISTENSEN: So people have been coming in and have been reacting with, like, awe and with, like, I think, bafflement, as well. I think people have been, like, what just happened? How could they sort of reflect on these issues back in 2004 and making it so relevant now, 20 years later?

SUMMERS: The Nuuk Art Museum acquired the work last year.

CHRISTENSEN: And then, of course, the world happened and Trump happened and all of this militarization of Greenland just happened. And everything just became even more relevant in the context of this show than it was before.

SUMMERS: There's also a map that imagines what it would be like if Denmark was part of the United States of Greenland.

(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)

SUMMERS: The artists have renamed parts of the country. It resembles Trump's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. We stop near a stretch of wall. I see some schematics hanging. One of them shows what looks like a kayak, but when you look closer, it's been rigged with weapons. The tip is full of grenades. Put simply, it's a suicide machine.

CHRISTENSEN: This is a suicide kayak. This kayak doesn't have a motor. So you can't just jump out of it, and it wouldn't go anywhere, right? So you have to be in it. Of course, we didn't have a department of defense. We still don't have a department of defense. We don't have our own military. So this whole show became this, like, investigation of what does it mean to have a military? And what does it mean if you don't have it? And, like, what happens and what kind of values do we put into our society through military actions?

SUMMERS: Greenlanders are raising real questions about their future and whether Denmark has done enough to keep them safe. Denmark controls Greenland's foreign policy and defense. The country recently announced a major increase in military spending for the arctic.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Through megaphone) You are going to be the property of Greenland.

SUMMERS: This exhibit was supposed to close to the public at the end of 2024.

CHRISTENSEN: But we decided to keep it there because of the whole world situation, so it felt wrong to take it down.

SUMMERS: Nivi Christensen isn't sure when this exhibit will come down now. When it does, some pieces will become part of the Nuuk Art Museum's permanent collection. And maybe eventually, it could have an American audience. Christensen jokingly refers to that possibility as a second invasion.

Any chance that this exhibit will be invading the U.S.?

CHRISTENSEN: I think that could be fun - to invade the U.S. with this collection.

SUMMERS: Tomorrow, on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we meet a local guide in one of Greenland's biggest tourist destinations and set out on a boat to the icebergs.

(SOUNDBITE OF OCEAN WAVES)

SUMMERS: This is one of the biggest tourist attractions in this part of the country. Look at all that ice.

(SOUNDBITE OF BOAT ENGINE RUNNING)

SUMMERS: There's so much ice that's broken off that is just floating free in the water as we go past the icebergs - moving pretty quickly now.

(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD AND GHOSTFACE KILLAH SONG, "STREET KNOWLEDGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.