ON DECOLONIZING EXHIBITIONS AND SÁMI CULTURAL SELF-DETERMINATION
In recent years we have seen an increase in exhibitions showcasing Contemporary Sámi art as well as a number of Sámi artists gaining recognition internationally. This is part of an ongoing effort by the art world and Scandinavian institutions in particular, to decolonise and support Sámi cultural self-determination. Despite these intentions, many of these exhibitions are limited in their representation of Sámi culture and art; often reduced to exhibiting works that directly reference colonialism, and take on traditional Western exhibition formats. In this paper I take the position that in order to truly decolonize exhibitions practices and best support Sámi cultural self-determination, institutions need to be indigenized and Sami professionals involved in the curatorial process, exhibitions need to be open to a plurality of aesthetics, concepts need to expand and move beyond referencing colonialism, and exhibition formats need to broaden and perhaps even draw upon indigenous ways of gathering. In light of the fact that there is very little literature on curating and exhibiting Sámi art, I have drawn upon a wide pool of literature, including contemporary indigenous art theory from around the world, and looked at art theorist from the global South.
I begin this paper by introducing the colonial history of the Sámi people. The reason for this is to shed light on the relationship between the Scandinavian States and the Sámi people. Not least because the effects of colonialism are still prevalent today, but an understanding of this history and the relationship between these two nations is subsequently important when thinking about how make de-colonial Sámi art exhibitions. I then move into an overview of both traditional and contemporary Sámi art and aesthetics, and highlight the divergences between indigenous and Western aesthetics. I delve into more traditional aesthetics customs to foreshadow a later discussion on possible de-colonial curatorial practices, which could draw upon philosophical and artistic contributions from Sámi culture. I then move into a discussion on contemporary Sámi art. Drawing upon globalisation theory I argue that contemporary Sámi art is being reduced to the logic of global capital - the spirit of which is Western. Since this has not yet been given due consideration despite the de-colonial turn in exhibition practices, the majority of exhibitions representing Sámi art and artist are curated so that they are legible to the hegemonic Euro-north American art world. As such, these supposedly de-colonial exhibitions amount to little more than narrating colonial histories and indigenous peoples suffering, and often perpetuate mainstream exhibition formats. In other words, such exhibitions tend to assimilate Sámi art into the Western museum context, rather than decolonise the curatorial process. They are consequently limited in their representation of and ambition to support Sámi culture, as well as insufficient in their attempts to decolonise their exhibition programmes. In the final part of this paper, I detail my four proposals for decolonising exhibition practices.
A brief overview of Sámi History
Although the oldest presence of human settlement in the Sámi homeland dates back even earlier, by the first millennium BC a Sámi people with a commonality of culture, ethnicity and language can be identified.[1] Today, the Sámi are the only recognised indigenous people of Scandinavia. Since the eighteenth century the Sámi homeland, known as Sámpi, has been divided by state borders. Although there is no official census, estimations of the Sámi population vary from 60,000 to 100,000.[2] More than half of all Sámi live in the area of Sampi that encompasses Norway, however the territory also extends across parts of Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Spanning woodlands, mountainous regions and sub-arctic coastal areas, the diverse terrain of the Sámi homeland has been important to the livelihood of different Sámi groups. For almost 4000 years, the majority of Sámi lived a migratory life in which their activities and movements varied according to the Seasons; establishing settlements in forest areas during the winter months, and migrating to lakes and the foothills of mountains in the summer.[3] Reindeer husbandry, fishing and trading have historically been the principal focus of traditional Sámi life. However, with the development of the modern world, the traditional Sámi lifestyle has declined. As such, the traditional pursuits of reindeer hunting and fishing, have to some degree been replaced by a growing tourism industry. In fact, in more recent years, an increasing number of Sámi have emigrated to national capitals and are working in industries unrelated to traditional Sámi culture, adhering instead more closely to Scandinavian culture[4].
Certainly, strong economic development in the North impacted the status and economy of the Sámi and their traditional way of life. However these changes in Sámi lifestyle and deep-rooted culture cannot be put down so flippantly to the ‘development of the modern world’. Since the nineteenth century, growing competition for land and resources meant the Sámi increasingly found their lives and livelihood encroached upon and exploited by the powerful Nordic States who have actively marginalised them both legally and politically. Although the Sámi have been subject to different government rules depending on which sides of the borders they fall into, all three Scandinavian States implemented their own harsh assimilation politics and laid claim to the Sámi homeland. Through onerous taxation, the building of settlements and development projects,[5] the Nordic States reduced the Sámi’s land and thus the basis for making a living and living in a traditional manner.[6]
The discriminatory minority assimilation policy implemented in Scandinavia was especially strict from around 1850 - 1970 and resulted in many Sámi taking on the culture of the majority population of the country in which they live. In Norway, the authorities put Sámi lifestyle and livelihood under particularly intense pressure between 1900 to 1940. Attempting to make the Norwegian language and culture universal, in became obligatory that to buy or lease State lands in Finnmark proof of fluency in Norwegian was required. Not only did this displace Sami people, but it threatened and eroded many of the Sámi languages. In both Finland and Sweden, the dominance of the majority culture was also reinforced through compulsory education.[7] This necessitated the construction of new schools and residential homes. It thus became mandatory that all Sámi children entered school, the teaching however was based on the Scandinavian State’s values, and lessons were taught in Finnish or Swedish. In this way, the Sámi children were educated in a Western manner, their tacit education in Sámi tradition was cut short;[8] and they were also indoctrinated to think that Sámi culture was inferior or backwards. Many Sámi people born in the 1940-60s experienced collective trauma in this boarding school system and were made to feel ashamed of their culture[9]. In further attempts to subjugate the Sámi people, the Nordic States also promoted Sámi culture for touristic purposes. These campaigns portrayed the Sámi as exotic, naïve and primitive, wearing colourful traditional costumes, existing as and being a part of the wilderness. As well as profiting off the Sami culture, this strategy by the Nordic States also served to mentally colonise the Sámi people, pressuring them to adopt these stereotyped ideas about themselves.[10] More extreme efforts in Sweden included a movement that sterilised Sámi women and collected samples from living people and graves for a race-based scientific research.[11]
Alongside this historical process of assimilation politics, and very much spurred by conflicts over the use of natural resources, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries saw a reawakening and defence of Sámi culture, the rise of indigenous resistance, and struggle for self-definition. During the 1970s the Sámi passed through one of their most significant crises. This was the damming of the Álttáeatnu River in Sápmi by the Norwegian energy company NVE, in the heart of the Sámi homeland. The Sámi people had already suffered at the hand of similar projects such as the construction of the Tuloma Reservoir in the 1930s, which caused flooding and destroyed many Sámi villages and ancestral lands. Consequently, the proposed damming of the Álttáeatnu River caused outrage and mobilised protests.[12]
Although these protests failed to prevent the building of the dam, they proved crucial in forging contemporary Sámi political and ethnic identity. As a direct result of these protests, the Sámi Act was promulgated in 1987, which led to the recognition of the Sámi people as indigenous to the region, the codification of the Sámi people’s rights in the C169 - Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989, and the establishment of their own parliaments in each of the Nordic countries.[13] The Sámi resistance also facilitated the development of modern political and cultural Sámi organisations and institutions, as well as the reintroduction of the Sámi language as a medium of instruction at schools and specific Sámi curriculums. In spite of these developments, it is important to mention that although the Sámi now have their own parliaments, their legislative powers are still limited by the national governments and parliaments of the Nordic countries in which they reside. Furthermore, while Norway and Denmark are among the twenty-two countries to ratify the C169, this is not true of Finland and Sweden, who have to a much lesser degree acknowledged the right of the Sámi to call themselves an indigenous people.[14]
The colonisation of the Sámi people and threat to their existence is far from over. Most recently, protests have erupted over new regulations by the Norwegian and Finnish governments to regulate the right to fish in the river. These regulations are said to “threaten the wellbeing of the Sámi from the Deatnu Valley,” and “represent a clear violation of human and indigenous rights”.[15] What is more, author of Sámi People of the North; a Social and Cultural History, Kent Neil, even warned that unless Sámi culture is perceived to offer benefits to the wider communities of the Nordic countries “goodwill may dry up quickly, especially in times of growing economic hardship” such that the “Sámi would then be in danger of finding themselves relegated to an increasingly restricted periphery, one in which not only their cultural identity but their economic existence is in danger of being extinguished”.[16]
Sámi art and aesthetics
The historical as well as contemporary currents that have shaped Sámi identity, lifestyle and livelihood have impacted the field of art and aesthetics. Not only have they been suppressed by the colonial efforts of the Nordic States, at the same time, anti-colonial resistance movements have reinvigorated traditional aesthetics and culture to assert indigenous identity. Consequently and also unrelated to this, there is a rich plethora of Sámi art and aesthetics of which I will now give an overview of for the purpose of later moving into a discussion about how to decolonize exhibition formats and curate Sami art.
In order to identify what constitutes Sámi art we need to acknowledged that indigenous and Western aesthetics are embedded in different world-views and subject to different judgement standards. This means a Western or hegemonic framework cannot accommodate an understanding of nor serve as a criteria to discern what constitutes indigenous art and aesthetics.[17] For example, contemporary Western conceptions of art and aesthetics are linked to ideas of rationalism and progress, and validated through certain institutions such as universities, museums and the white cube; a global art market for buying and selling art; as well as a broad discourse on art generated by intermediaries including critics, curators and journalists. Sámi art and aesthetics on the other hand, or at least some of the more traditional artistic practices, are bound to a spiritual and moral philosophy, known as Duodji. As the Sámi scholar Irene Snarby argues, this ‘philosophy of art’ or belief system comprises a holistic view of life and culture; placing multiple practical, social and spiritual activities on an interrelated and equal level.[18] In a way, art is a way of life or being human is an ‘aesthetic experience’, which includes gathering; paying respect to fellow citizens, traditions, nature and one’s own surroundings; transferring tacit knowledge between generations; the treatment and use of working materials (such as wood or reindeer leather); as well as more widely recognized art forms such as storytelling and yoik (a genre of traditional Sámi singing)[19]. Finnish-Sami artist, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (1943-2001) described the Sami conception of art as “each moment of life being an artistic experience…carving with a knife, colourful clothes with belt, cap and scarf, white moccasins on the snow, … isn't it beautiful when folk sit down in the snow, make a fire and gather round the flames?”[20] Viewed through a Western framework, these art forms are more likely to be considered ethnographic objects or exhibited as part of an ethnographic exhibition. Valkeapää himself acknowledges this, when he goes on to argue that art as an isolated phenomenon and artists as a professional group are a product of modern society and colonial influence.[21]
Duodji is often mistranslated as ‘Sámi handicrafts’, as such, many of the functional yet decorative objects from Sámi culture, such as Lavvu (temporary dwellings) and traditional dress, are considered Duodji.[22] While this is true, what makes them Duodji is not the decorative or aesthetic dimension, but that they are grounded in this solid foundation of knowledge, technique and philosophy. Today duodji has been institutionalised with its own educational system and regulatory mechanisms to guarantee Sámi authenticity and protect duodji.[23]
It was not until the twentieth century, however, that modern art in the painterly continental European sense found its footing in Sámpi.[24] As it began to develop, Sámi artists felt it necessary to coin the term, Dáidda, for such practices in order to distinguish it from traditional crafts.[25] More recently, Dáidda has also come to include Contemporary art Practices. As contemporary art has emerged as a global discipline and the prevailing artistic current of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, we have seen Sámi artists take up contemporary practices: Maret Anne Sara, Synnøve Persen and Joar Nango being some of the biggest names to date. Much like Nils-Aslak Valkeapää suggested, professor of indigenous and Sámi art, Svein Aamold, also argued that this shift from ‘traditional’ artistic practices into the more globalised is evident of how Sámi artists working outside of established traditional crafts have been obliged to assimilate and become part of the modern Scandinavian or European hegemonic institutionalised art world.[26] This is an interesting idea because it is so often argued that contemporary art, having emerged out of the transformations brought about by globalisation, is a new global discipline that is profoundly challenging the predominance of Western art and its judgment standard, and generating a more inclusive environment for artists from all over the world.[27]
In order to determine whether contemporary Sámi art is the effect of colonial influence or assimilation into a Western institutionalised art world, or whether it is the product of a de-hegemonising global art world, we need to better understand globalisation. It is necessary to unpick this, so as to understand what colonial structures or Eurocentric systems of discrimination are at work in the contemporary art world, so as to successfully decolonize exhibition practices and support Sámi cultural self-determination.
Contemporary Art and Globalisation
Globalisation escapes easy definition and is impossible to know as a subject in any conventional way. In simplest terms, it is the organisation of the world through a series of global networks; a set of fractured yet connected and interconnected processes and infrastructures driven by the logic of global capital. It is characterised by the global production, distribution and consumption of goods, the mobility of people, technological development and virtually instantaneous communications systems, the trading of capital and commodities, and globally available mass media and entertainment.[28] As such, Globalisation theories emphasise “integration, reciprocal interdependencies or a commonly shared consciousness”[29], and as a result of this increasing connectedness, globalisation has intensified encounters between different cultures, religions, and ethnic and national identities.[30]
We can observe similar changes within the art world. In fact, to even speak about art as contemporary art is already the effect of these global transformations.[31] In recent years, globalisation has issued in a remapping and a rewriting of the world of art and creative practices. A once unimaginable set of networks and circulations have emerged, opening up previously marginalised groups of non-Western artists and unexplored regions to the Art World.[32] As new continents, countries, and indigenous communities enter the art world, new networks and infrastructures continue to unfold in parallel. Importantly, these new networks are defying the traditional path from centre to periphery, and instead functioning as transnational, regional or south to south networks, [33] and thus considered to be challenging the Western hegemony of the art world.
One of the most frequently cited indicators of the globalisation of the art world is the intensification of biennials over the last decades.[34] This is not only because they are taking place in locations all over the world but in the last 20 years more artists and curators from non-western and indigenous communities than ever before have been included in these so called ‘global exhibitions’.[35] Sámi art and artists have been no exception to this. In 2017, eight Sami practitioners were represented at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, including: Máret Ánne Sara, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Synnøve Persen, Keviselie (Hans Ragnar Mathisen), Mette Henriette, Iver Jåks, Niillas Somby and Joar Nango. Even more recently, it was announced that Sámi artists, Máret Ánne Sara, Anders Sunna, and Pauliina Feodoroff, will represent Sápmi at the 2022 Venice Biennale. At a press conference streamed by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) it was reported “For the first time, only Sámi artists will be presented in a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and for the first time, the Sámi will be recognised as a nation in a pavilion that bears their name.”[36]
This proliferation of contemporary art practices, infrastructure, and the increased mobility of artworks and creative practitioners, is the result of globalisation. However, globalisation could not have achieved dominance across the globe without centuries long histories of Western colonial and imperial conquest.[37] From the fifteenth century, European powers colonised and pillaged lands across the globe; exploiting and reaping the rewards from the resources and labour of what is often today termed the global south. Consequently, a European hegemony, marked by Western ideals and values, asserted itself over the rest of the world. While the close of the twentieth century saw the end of European colonialism, from its legacy came a mutation of the old world order. In this way, although globalisation cannot be said to belong to a culture, nation, or a civilisation, being a product of European colonialism, means it still presents itself through continuing patterns of Western economic, ideological and cultural dominance. Put another way, while the unfurling of networks, reciprocal interdependencies, and increased connectivity means we can no longer really speak of the global order in binary terms: coloniser vs colonised, North vs South - there remains colonial residue and as such we are only in the early stages of globalisation extinguishing such hierarchies.[38]
Consequently, despite the development of alternate art networks, the strongest current is still a Euro-north American art network. This means that globalisation, in conjunction with neoliberal policies, is co-opting cultural economies into a Western leaning realm of a privatised, overtly politicised ethic of production, exchange and consumption.[39] Thus, as current trends and exhibitions of contemporary art in the last two decades reflect, although more art from around the world is being included in international exhibitions: art produced in Western Europe and North America is privileged, a vast number of contemporary exhibitions are aimed at a Western audience rather than at local ones,[40] and todays supposedly ‘globalised artistic parameters’ are in fact Western judgment standard.[41] As Anna Somers Cocks notes it is Western art institutions that give validation to contemporary art from elsewhere in the world.[42] While she goes on to questions whether this a form of colonisation, it does mean that in order to get representation or recognition from the global art world, indigenous and non-western communities must deploy an artistic language that is legible to the hegemonic Euro-north American art world infrastructure. This clearly demonstrates that there are complexities arising today from an art world that declares itself as inclusive and global, and cultural production from non-Western cultures is, albeit indirectly, being altered and even undermined by global capitals Western leanings. In this sense it seems that contemporary art world inclusivity is contingent on assimilation.
Decolonizing Contemporary Sámi art exhibitions
This confrontation with other parts of the world brought about by globalisation, has also instigated a turn to decolonize the art world, and in particular the museum - a very Western institution that has been so intimately linked to the colonisation process.[43] In the words of Ivan Muñz-Reed, this de-colonial turn is an “ongoing ethico-political and epistemic project, which seeks to de-link museums from colonial structures which underpin todays systems of discrimination”.[44]
The surge of interest in Sámi art in recent years is testament to this institutional awakening. Many of the Nordic institutions have taken it upon themselves to acknowledge their history of colonialism and honour Sámi culture.[45] This has resulted in institutions critically rethinking their collections and purchasing policies, creating more inclusive exhibition programmes, and diversifying the makeup of the institutions and including indigenous people on the decision making board. Consequently, for the first time ever the winner of the Bergen Kunstall festival exhibition 2020 was Sámi artist, Joar Nango.[46] Since 2017, Kunsthall Trondeim, has shown an interest in showcasing contemporary Sámi artists, and has hosted separate events and exhibitions of Silje Figenschou Thoresen, Iver Jåks and Timimie Märak.[47] OCA has also made huge contributions to this movement, who after embarking on a decolonizing and indigenising programme, has received a great deal of praise for its efforts to promote Sámi art, both nationally and internationally.[48]
Despite this de-colonial turn that has seen the inclusion of Sámi art into mainstream Scandinavian art institutions, current exhibitions do not seem to do justice to the ambitions of de-colonial theory. Most exhibitions indulge certain recurring subject matters, and such shows are aimed at a Western or Scandinavian audience rather than a Sámi one. This ties into what I was saying earlier that in order to get representation or recognition from the global art world, indigenous communities must deploy an artistic language that is legible to the hegemonic Euro-north American art world. More specifically, what we are seeing is that as a result of this ‘legible artistic language’ the majority exhibitions that are being produced and the artworks that get the most attention engage with themes of: Sámi identity and culture; Scandinavian colonialism, and Sámi civil rights. For example, at Documenta 14 the selected works of the Sámi Artist Group were intended to be a “guide into the history of Sámi self-determination and decolonisation”.[49] This included Synnøve Person, from the Sámi Flag Project, an unofficial silk screen flag of Sampi, which sought to reclaim Sámi identity as differentiated from the Scandinavian nations, and which also came to play a role in the protests and hunger strikes over the colonial exploitation of the land in Sámpi. There was also a selection of Keviselie’s (Hans Ragnar Mathisen) illustrations from his maps series. A project that reclaimed maps of Sámpi from the colonisers and replaced the coloniser place names with those of the Indigenous names, and which played a crucial role in revitalising Sámi culture and language. Alongside those, a selection of Britta Marakatt-Labba embroidery pieces depicting monumental events in Sámpi history. Secondly, despite the multiple layers to this show, Joar Nango exhibition at Bergen was still framed as an “investigation into the traditions and experiences from his cultural background” that addressed “indigenous identity and decolonialization”.[50] Even OCA’s travelling exhibition Let the River Flow focused on the Sámi resistance movements, presenting material from The Archives of the Protest Movement against the Damming of the Áltá-Guovdageaidnu Water System, and new contemporary commissions that explore the legacy of Áltá today.[51]
While I'm not reducing these exhibitions solely down to these themes, these examples suggests that there is a general insistence on locking aesthetic production into indigenous peoples suffering, colonial history and current political rhetoric[52]. Amy Lonetree, scholar of indigenous history and museum studies, argues such themes are important for challenging the stereotypical representations of indigenous people produced in the past; addressing colonisation in an effort to promote healing and understanding; addressing the trauma indigenous people have experienced related to assimilation programmes, loss of land and racism; and for serving as sites of knowledge making, educating and remembering for the indigenous communities and the general public.[53] Indigenous curator, David Garneau, on the other hand, who is more critical of these sorts of exhibitions asks: “Why are we Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal curators presenting Aboriginal pain to a primarily non-Indigenous audience? What do we hope to achieve?”.[54] Adding to this, independent curator and researcher on decolonial aesthetics, Ivan Muñiz-Reed, argues that systematically including oppressed histories into the museum has proven to be insufficient, and in fact, when not carefully enacted, can lead to institutional tokenism and feel disingenuous.[55] Without question, addressing colonial legacies is important in the decolonizing process, however exhibition programs that engage solely with this history are limited. The continued representation of indigenous people as victims serves as a rigid prism through which both groups evaluate indigenous experiences, while also keeping indigenous people and cultural production static and trapped within a victimhood narrative, and thus reduced to a single story.[56] This is clearly antithetical to self-determination.
To really decolonize curatorial practices and facilitate Sámi cultural self-determination, curatorial practices need to be aware of and resist the Western leanings and assimilatory force of globalisation. This means challenging the ‘legible artistic language’ that has now become common place, and shouldering the responsibility of communicating artworks to different places and cultures.
Exhibitions of the Future and decolonizing museum practices
The question now remains, how can we challenge this ‘artistic language’ and thus confront the assimilatory force of globalisation? To answer this, it of course open up more questions: what exhibition themes and formats can best support Sámi cultural self-determination and allow Sámi culture to flourish outside of the parameters set by Western globalisation? What institutional infrastructure can best support these ambitions? I have identified four possible starting points to take into consideration: curatorial themes and concepts, a plurality of aesthetics, exhibition formats, and institutional restructuring and Sámi participation in the curatorial process.
Institutional restructuring and indigenous participation in the curatorial process
Firstly, as Katya García-Antón, director of OCA argues, Sami professionals still need to be integrated urgently within major national institutions across the Nordic region.[57] This certainly isn't a new idea; forging collaborative partnerships with indigenous or local professionals when exhibiting other cultures or having to contextualise works by artists from across the globe is already largely considered ‘best practice’ in the field internationally. However it is important to mention and to clarify that this means going beyond not only making space for Indigenous content or hiring Sámi as consultants, but also including Indigenous participation and contributions in governance and decision making, adopting Indigenous protocols that work to further decolonize systems of control and knowledge, and privileging, or at the very least viewing as equal, indigenous perspectives and knowledges over non indigenous ones. In addition to this impacting exhibitions in terms of programming, it is also likely to have a direct effect on exhibition mediation in ways that may include incorporating indigenous languages; using indigenous names of places, names of people and proper nouns. This is important for self-determination, not only because the Sámi are controlling the representation of their cultures and narrating their own histories, but also because it ensures they are instrumental in facilitating the indigenisation of Scandinavia’s institutions.
Exhibition themes and concepts
Secondly, as mentioned earlier, current exhibitions of Sámi art are limited to the subjugation of the Sámi people and predominantly include works that reference colonialism. As Cree scholar Winona Wheeler states “decolonisation is about empowerment… It is about transforming negative reactionary energy into the more positive rebuilding energy needed in our communities”.[58] It is important then, for exhibitions to also contend with the present, and imagine new futures and even alternate pasts, and that these explorations are equally important as those centred around victimhood and colonial histories. Put another way, in order not to confine contemporary Sámi culture to one voice and to support sovereignty, it is necessary to expand the exhibition themes and concept that embed Sámi art into the global art world. This could be by contributing Sámi perspectives to global discourses or even engaging with more niche aspects of Sámi culture.
More specifically, expanded themes that add to global discourses could come in the form of groups shows that present a coming together of ideas and diverse viewpoints. To illustrate my point a little further, I want to draw upon a recent exhibition at Arts Catalyst in London, which investigated the politics of extraction across the planet. The exhibition connected the snowy forests of Southern Sampi with the Atacama Desert in Chile to make visible the extent and scale of which mining activities by multinational corporations are happening across the globe, and the impacts these extractive industries are having on the landscapes and native communities. By pooling together multiple perspective and giving them equal weight, a much denser picture of a global issue is constructed, at the same time it dehegemonises knowledge. This is just one example, but the point is, including philosophical, artistic and theoretical contributions and perspectives that originate from Sámpi in global conversations, challenges and balances out the prevailing Eurocentric perspectives and situates Sámi perspectives within a global discourse. In fact, especially in the context of the climate crisis, sharing Sámi knowledge regarding new ecologies and relationships to and knowledge of the land is surely to be invaluable, and calls for more interdisciplinary exhibitions.
These sorts of exhibitions could be limited to local artists, and thus allow an ensemble of Sámi perspectives to emerge rather than just one overarching ‘Sámi perspective’, or be an international group show and include artists and artworks from across the globe. If they are international group shows, however, it should go without saying that the perspective of an artist should not be reduced to their heritage or nationality, and nor does their perspective represent that of a whole group. Rather, it should be understood that their perspective is informed by, but not limited to, a multitude of factors (race, gender, sexuality, health, age, class, education, experiences, environmental factors etc). Other possible expanded exhibition themes could be about, or include works that are even more so out of the purview of hegemonic Western culture, and which engage instead with more niche aspects of Sámi sociopolitical-cultural life, ethics, belief systems and aesthetics. This may mean extra consideration or mediation is needed to make such exhibition accessible to a broad audience. To do this, and this relates to what I was saying earlier about collaborating with local professionals, it is important that when curating outside of ones areas of expertise to turn to specialists. As curator and activist, Maura Reilly puts it “as curators we must admit that we are not professionally equipped to contextualise works by all artists from across the globe and must seek assistance and participation of specialist and/or local advisors from the curated cultures… The regional specialists understanding of the socioeconomic and political context and the local language within which the works are being produced is invaluable and can broaden the sample base of artists from which to choose”.[59] This will provide a more comprehensive sense of artistic production in the region, and potentially offer a greater plurality of aesthetics to work with.
A plurality of Aesthetics
This leads onto my third point. To challenge the assimilatory or homogenising force of globalisation it is necessarily to include a plurality of aesthetics in exhibitions. This means not only the inclusion of Sámi artists in exhibitions but also acknowledging that there is no single universal aesthetic. One way to do this, as OCA did, is to include in contemporary art exhibitions, traditional artworks and objects, rare historic works, and/or archival content. In the show Let the River Flow,[60] OCA presented a number of duodji, alongside contemporary and commissioned art pieces. This allowed for and situated non-western aesthetics as separate from but equal to Western art and aesthetics. However, it is important to ensure that the display of these works are true to the philosophy behind them, and that they are not exhibited as ethnographic material. This will require making sure the correct information is available, or exploring how display formats can mirror their philosophy. At the same time, a larger shift is required to allow for a plurality of aesthetics to develop, which may not be possible without a redistribution of resources and funding.
Alternate Exhibition Formats
My final suggestion for breaking away from the colonial structures that underpin todays Eurocentric exhibition practices and supporting Sámi self-definition, is to consider alternative exhibition formats. That is, ones that have not emerged out of colonial practices of display and instead mirror more indigenous way of presenting, gathering, organising, coming together publicly and exploring what a Sámi way of exhibiting is or could be.
What instigated this thought, was that during the Sámi peoples struggle for political representation, opinions were divided amongst those who believed in using the traditional form of Sámi gathering, and those for whom the only model possible in practice was one that was recognised by the Norwegian State, that is a parliamentary format. It was the latter that won the debate, and led to traditional forms being replaced by a Norwegian model. Although this paper is about the cultural sphere, the premise is still the same; whether in a political or cultural forum, the Sámi have had to assimilate to the hegemonic model, that being a parliamentary format or a ‘white cube’ exhibition format. As such, it is necessary to consider alternate exhibition formats that draw upon traditional Sámi forms of gathering rather than assimilate to Western models as a way of strengthening cultural sovereignty. In this way, exhibitions could also move away from being elitist temples of esoteric learning and move towards providing forums for community engagement.
I should add however, I am not encouraging blocking non-traditional practices, this would makes things stagnant and repetitive, my point is that there should be space for alternate practices, models, and formats to be present that may resonate more closely with Sámi culture.
Conclusion
Since the nineteenth century, the Sámi people have been colonised by the Nordic States who have actively marginalised them both legally and politically. In recent years, not least because of the efforts made by the Sámi resistance movements, there have been attempts to redress this. Following suit, mainstream Scandinavian cultural institutions have made efforts to decolonize and indigenise. This has seen the inclusion of Sámi art in more exhibitions, both throughout Scandinavia and internationally. Despite the well-meaning intensions behind these exhibitions, as decolonial practices and to support Sámi cultural self-determination they have fallen short. This is partly because of the misguided assumption that contemporary art, being a product of globalisation, is a global discipline and does not belong to ‘one culture’. However, since globalisation could not have achieved dominance across the globe without Western colonial and imperial conquest, the Western origins of globalisation presents itself through continuing patterns of Western economic, ideological and cultural dominance. Consequently, the strongest current in the Art world is a Euro-north American one. As such todays supposedly ‘globalised artistic parameters’ are in fact Western leaning and primarily cater to a Euro-north American art world. Consequently, current exhibitions amount to little more than absorbing Sámi art into Western institutions. To de-link exhibitions from the colonial structures which underpin todays systems of discrimination, we need a plurality of Aesthetics , Alternate Exhibition Formats, Exhibition themes and concepts, Institutional restructuring collaborative partnerships with Sámi professionals. While I do not claim to have the answers to creating more inclusive exhibitions, I hope that what I have presented can contribute to facilitating Sámi cultural self-determination, and decolonizing curatorial and exhibition practices more generally, so as to create a more inclusive Art World.
[1] Aage Solbakk, Sápmi Sameland. Samenes historie fram til 1751, (Karasjok: Davvi girji, 2007), 10.
[2] Svein Aamold, “Unstable Categories of Art and People” in Sámi Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Svein Aamold, Ulla AngkjAer Jorgensen, and Elin Haugdal (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017), 14. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[3] Neil Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North: A social and Cultural History (London: C.Hurst & Co, 2018), Introduction. Epub
[4] Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North, conclusion.
[5] Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North, Chap. 7.
[6] Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Greetings from Lappland: The Sami- Europe’s Forgotten People (London: Zed Press, 1983), 4.
[7] Tuija Hautala-Hirvioja, “Traditional Sámi Culture and the Colonial Past as the Basis for Sámi Contemporary Art” in Sámi Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Svein Aamold, Ulla AngkjAer Jorgensen, and Elin Haugdal (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017), 100. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[8] Valkeapää, Greetings from Lappland, 4.
[9] Hautala-Hirvioja, Colonial Past as the Basis for Sámi Contemporary Art, 100.
[10] ibid, 99.
[11] The Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), Let the River Flow: The Sovereign Will and The Making of a New Wordliness, (Oslo: OCA, 2018). 12
[12] Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North, Chap.1.
[13] The Parliament in Finland was established in 1973, in Norway in 1989, and in Sweden in 1993. The Sami population within the Russian federation however, have not been recognised by the state and have therefore not been able - or allowed - to organised their own institutions in the same ways as the Sami of Scandinavian countries.
[14] Aamold, Unstable Categories, 14.
[15] “Moratorium in Čearretsuolo” ICCA Consortium, last modified 17 June 2017, https://www.iccaconsortium.org/index.php/2017/07/17/moratorium-in-cearretsuolu/
[16] Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North, Chap 7
[17] Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Sanna Valkonen and Jarno Valkonen, Knowing From The Indigenous North; Sámi Approaches to History, Politics and Belonging, (Oxon: Routledge, 2019) 20.
[18] Irene Snarby, “Duodji as Indigenous Contemporary Art Practice”, Norwegian Crafts, 23rd April 2019, https://www.norwegiancrafts.no/articles/duodji-as-indigenous-contemporary-art-practice
[19] Gry-Kristina Fors Spein, “Duodji as a Starting Point for Artistic Practice” Norwegian Crafts, https://www.norwegiancrafts.no/articles/duodji-as-a-starting-point-for-artistic-practice
[20] Valkeapää, Greetings from Lappland, 60.
[21] Ibid
[22] Monica Grini Sámi (re)presentation in a Differentiating Museumscape: Revisting the art-culture system. Noric Museology 2019 3,s. 169-185, 175
[23] Sámi duojarat (practitioners of duodji) have long produced objects to sell to tourists and theological museums. However, in recent years Duodji has been threatened by the production of false Sámi souvenirs from the far corners of the globe. Consequently, new regulatory measures where set up to ensure Sámi authenticity and protect duodji.
[24] Kent, Sámi Peoples of the North, Chap 4.
[25] Harald Gaski, “Indigenous Aesthetics: Add Context to Context” in Sámi Art and Aesthetics: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Svein Aamold, Ulla AngkjAer Jorgensen, and Elin Haugdal (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017), 187. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[26] Aamold, Unstable Categories, 13
[27] I draw upon Peter Weibel here, where he argues that “globalisation is turning against the very author of globalisation”, and that the powerful forces that once led to the “hegemony of the West - namely, the nation-state and capitalism - are threatening her from within”. As such, this the dehegemonizing of the West is supposedly creating a more even or level playing field within the contemporary art world. This is explained in greater detail below.
Peter Weibel, “Globalization and Contemporary art” in The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds. Ed. Hans Belting , Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel, (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2013), 20.
[28] Jonathan Harris , “Introduction: Globalization and Contemporary Art: A Convergence of Peoples and Ideas” in Globalization and Contemporary Art. (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 5.
[29] Lara Buchholz and Ulf Wuggenig. “Cultural Globalization Between Myth and Reality: The Case of the Contemporary Visual Arts”. ART-E-FACT, no.4, (2005).
[30] Peter Weibel, “Globalization and Contemporary art” in The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds. Ed. Hans Belting , Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel, (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2013), 20.
[31] Ibid, 25.
[32] Irit Rogoff. Geo-Cultures Circuits of Arts and Globalizations. (2006). 4. https://www.onlineopen.org/geo-cultures. Last accessed 4th February 2021.
[33] Rogoff, “Geo-Cultures”, 4.
[34] Buchholz and Wuggenig. “Cultural Globalization Between Myth and Reality”.
[35] Christian Kravagna, “Transkulturelle Bli>
[36] Andreas Breivik, “The Nordic Pavilion Becomes the First Sámi Pavilion”, Kunst Kritikk, 16th October, 2020 https://kunstkritikk.com/the-nordic-pavilion-becomes-the-first-sami-pavilion/
[37] Harris, Introduction: Globalization and Contemporary Art, 1.
[38] Weibel, “Globalization and Contemporary art”, 21.
[39] Downey, A. (2016). Critical Propositions and Institutional Realities in the Middle East. In: Downey, A Future Imperfect: Contemporary Art practices and cultural institutions in the Middle East. Berlin: Sternberg Press. 14-46.
[40] David Garneau, “Can I get a Witness?” in Soverign Words; Indigenous Art, Curation and Criticism ed. Katya García-Antón (Oslo:OCA, 2018) 15-31.
[41] Ivan Muñiz-Reed, “Thoughts on Curatorial Practices in the Decolonial Turn”, On Curating 35. (Dec 2017): 99.
[42]Anna Summers Cocks, “Are We Colonising Middle Eastern Art?”, The Art Newspaper, (2009). Available: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Are-we-colonialising-Middle-Eastern-art?/18604. Last accessed 25th May 2011.
[43] The history of museum representation of Native, indigenous and non-western people, began with the development of anthropology were the result of the colonial excursions. Earlier forms of exhibitions existed such as the cabinet of curiosities, which were private collections assembled by travellers and rich merchants who collected ‘artificial curiosities’ - objects made by people from distant exotic places.
[44] Muñiz-Reed, “Curatorial Practices in the Decolonial Turn”, 100.
[45] Mathias Danbolt, “Into the Friction”, Kunst Kritikk, 15th May 2020 https://kunstkritikk.com/into-the-friction/
[46] Marianne Enge, “Just Breathe”, Kunst Kritikk 18th September 2020, https://kunstkritikk.com/just-breathe/
See also “Joar Nango: The festival Exhibition 2020”, Bergen Kunsthall. Accessed 4th February 2020 https://www.kunsthall.no/en/?AID=3057&ID=26&K=1&AAR=2020&MND=9&index=0
[47] See Bergen Kunsthall’s exhibition archive. Accessed 4th February 2020, https://www.kunsthall.no/en/?act=ark&aar=2021&arrtID=6&ArrLokID=1
[48] Danbolt, “Into the Friction”.
[49] paraphrased from the Documenta 14 exhibition catalogue https://www.documenta14.de/en/artists/13551/sami-artist-group-keviselie-hans-ragnar-mathisen-britta-marakatt-labba-synnove-persen-
[50] Paraphrased from “Joar Nango: The festival Exhibition 2020”, Bergen Kunsthall. Accessed 4th February 2020 https://www.kunsthall.no/en/?AID=3057&ID=26&K=1&AAR=2020&MND=9&index=0
[51] OCA, Let the River Flow.
[52] I draw upon the work of Sylvia Naef. Her research concludes that artistic production from the Levant and North Africa is locked into fixed politicized themes and aimed at Western audience. Although her research focuses on a different region to my own, given that both the Arab art world and the Sámi art world are communities on the periphery of the global art world, I found the premise of her research corresponded with my own research into contemporary exhibitions showcasing Sámi art.
Sylvia Naef, “Exhibiting the Work of Artists from ‘Islamic’ Backgrounds in the West: Current Practices and Future Perspectives”. West Coast Line. 43. (4) 2010, 30-36.
[53] Amy Lonetree, Decolonizing Mueseums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums, (USA:The Univeristy of North Carolina Press, 2012) Chap 1. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[54] Leah Sandals, “Art, Residential Schools & Reconciliation: Important Questions”, Canadianart, November 14, 2013 https://canadianart.ca/features/art-and-reconciliation/
[55] Muñiz-Reed, “Curatorial Practices in the Decolonial Turn”, 101.
[56] Daniel Bar-Tal, Lily Chernyak-Hai, Noa Schori and Ayelet Gundar, “A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood in intractable conflicts”, International Review of the Red Cross, vol 91; 874 (June 2009)
[57] Susan Falkenås, The Norwegian Art Scene Must be Decolonised, Kunst Kritikk, 13th November 2017, https://kunstkritikk.com/the-norwegian-art-scene-must-be-decolonised/
[58] Winona Li-Ann Stevenson, “decolonizing tribal histories” 212, quoted in Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, Remember This! 13-14.
[59] Maura Reilly, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2018), 105.