Nivi Christensen Resigns as Project Manager for Greenland's National Gallery, Criticizes BIG Design

Key facts

• Nivi Christensen resigned after four months as project manager for the Foundation for the Establishment of a Greenland National Gallery of Art and returned to Nuuk Art Museum.
• She was appointed in December 2025 to secure funding for a museum designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
• The future gallery would be the first national gallery in the world devoted to the art of an Indigenous people.
• The existing collection comprises around thirty works, mostly private donations, and will receive artefacts from the Greenland National Museum covering the Saqqaq culture (c. 2300 BCE) to the 1950s.
• A substantial donation of works by Hans Lynge (1906–88) and pieces from Nuuk Art Museum and the Greenland Art School archive are also planned.
• The project began in 2004 with a committee of Greenlandic artists; a foundation has fundraised since 2006 and in December 2025 was roughly halfway to its goal.
• BIG won a 2011 architectural competition involving one Greenlandic and four Nordic practices; the circular building is planned for northern Nuuk with just over 2,000 square metres of floor space.
• Christensen criticizes the building's inflexible single continuous exhibition space and the lack of Greenlandic architects, citing the National Theatre in Kautokeino, Sápmi, by Snøhetta with Joar Nango, as a better example.