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Crude Conversations

Chatter Marks EP 127 Shaped by land with Emily Sullivan

Crude Conversations

crudemag

Society & Culture

4.9152 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Emily Sullivan is a writer, a photographer, and a director whose work is grounded in questions of land, community, and responsibility. Throughout her work, she focuses on uplifting Indigenous perspectives — not by speaking for communities, but by listening to what people are already saying and doing. Her first film, Shaped by Land, is currently screening at festivals. It’s a documentary about Greenlandic skiers and their connection to place, set against the backdrop of the new Greenland Tourism Act — legislation designed to protect land, center local ownership, and resist extractive tourism. Emily’s interest in Greenland is shaped by her experience in Alaska, where many of the same tensions play out under different economic structures. In both places, people arrive seeking experience, adventure, and meaning, often without reckoning with what those desires take from the communities they move through. Emily’s path to this work started when she was just a kid. She’s always been an observant person, someone who noticed small shifts in light and weather — that’s where her photographic eye comes from — and that sense of awe never really left. It grew out of curiosity, and later, into a belief that anything capable of stopping you in your tracks is probably worth paying attention to. And then, through her work and time spent in Alaska, climate change became personal and immediate — visible in rivers that don’t freeze when they should, unstable ice, unfamiliar weather patterns, and disrupted fish runs.  Much of her education in climate change came from Alaska Native peoples, specifically women who have been leading this work for generations. That learning shaped Emily’s commitment to bringing Indigenous knowledge, solutions, and sovereignty to the forefront of her storytelling — using careful observation and conversation to explore the forces shaping our collective future.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You mentioned the asking permission of the land, and that's definitely like a newer concept for me within the last five years.

0:18.0

Of even just like being in a in a in a space just like that was

0:25.9

something that was introduced to me by indigenous people that I was going on the land with to

0:30.5

like give a gift to the land whether it's like a little bit of tobacco or maybe like I tend to gather

0:35.9

Labrador tea and dry it and then I'll bring some with me when

0:39.8

I'm going other places and I'll lay some down. And it's just an offering to say like I'm here

0:44.5

with respect and like asking permission to be here, asking permission to do what I'm doing here.

0:52.8

And yeah, that I take no, like that was taught to me.

0:56.8

And I really think it's a great way to be.

1:00.3

And I think it's like really helped me to like stay grounded when I'm out doing things.

1:05.2

And so yeah, I really have made a practice of doing that.

1:10.8

And, you know, when I have traveled to places like Greenland or Iceland or other like Arctic places, Norway, I take some Labrador tea with me from the Arctic Refuge here.

1:20.6

And then it's like this nice little connection of these Arctic landscapes as well.

1:25.6

That was Emily Sullivan.

1:28.9

She's a photographer, a writer, and a director,

1:32.9

whose work is grounded in questions of land, community, and responsibility.

1:39.9

Throughout her work, she focuses on uplifting indigenous perspectives, not by speaking for communities,

1:47.6

but by listening to what people are already saying and doing.

1:52.1

Her first film, shaped by land, is currently screening at festivals.

1:57.9

It's a documentary about Greenlandic skiers and their connection to place, set against the backdrop of the New Greenland Tourism Act, legislation designed to protect land, center local ownership, and resist extractive tourism.

2:16.6

Emily's interest in Greenland is shaped by her experience in Alaska,

2:21.6

where many of the same tensions play out under different economic structures.

...

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