OSLO – Right now, many members of the Sámi, one of the oldest indigenous groups in Europe, are beginning spring migration, relocating the reindeer herds on which their livelihoods and crops depend to pasture areas north of the Arctic Circle. But this year a handful are heading in the opposite direction. They are leaving for Italy, where for the first time a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale will be entirely dedicated to Sámi artists.
The Biennale, perhaps the most prestigious art event in the world, opens to the public next Saturday. Previously, it included local artists. But in a show organized along national lines, the decision to dedicate an entire pavilion to people whose identities transcend the territorial boundaries long imposed on them makes a strong political statement.
Usually Finland, Norway and Sweden share the space of the Biennale, known as the Scandinavian pavilion. This year it was renamed the Sámi Pavilion, in recognition of three nations that many Sámi see as their colonizers.
Jolene Ricard, a member of the Tuscarora nation and a professor of art history at Cornell University who specializes in local art, said the decision was important. “He recognizes the Sami as a nation that exists beyond neighboring borders; it creates a place for a different image of the nation, “she said.
Traditionally a semi-nomadic people numbering about 80,000, the Sámi are scattered over about 150,000 square miles in the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the governments of these countries suppressed the Sámi languages and imposed cultural assimilation on the Sámi, exposing the forests where they lived and hunted and opening their lands to settlement.
In recent decades, the Sámi have struggled – often unsuccessfully – to protect their lands from mineral and timber extraction, their migration routes from development and their traditional state-controlled reindeer husbandry practices.
And although the Sami lived in northern Scandinavia long before the arrival of the Vikings, they have little representation in Scandinavian culture. Katja Garcia-Anton, director of the Oslo-based Norwegian Art Office, an organization that oversaw the Scandinavian pavilion, said she first noticed the absence when she moved to Norway from London in 2014. “I could see that there is a huge gap, a certain division between the Sami and the Norwegians, “she said. “So I thought this seemed to be an area where we, as an organization, could try to build bridges.
The Sámi pavilion, curated by Garcia-Anton with Sámi scholar Liisa-Ravna Finbog and Sámi handicraftsman and activist Beaska Nylas, will feature works by three artists who are also involved in political activism.
“These Sámi artists are trying to live their lives,” said Garcia-Anton. “But there are obstacles – structural barriers, legislative barriers, philosophical barriers – that prevent them from doing so,” she said. Art, she added, is “a place where they can work with much more freedom than they can if they follow the legal path or even the educational path.”
Maret Ann Sara, a Sámi artist from Norway who will show work in the pavilion, described her art as a “protest and symbol”. When her brother filed a lawsuit against the Norwegian government in 2016 for the slaughter of part of his herd, she set up an installation in front of the courthouse of 200 bloody reindeer heads. A later sculpture called “Pile o’Sápmi”, made of reindeer skulls, was shown at Documenta, another prestigious international art exhibition, in 2017.
Sarah declined to give details of the work she will present in Venice, but Garcia-Anton said it would include reindeer.
Legal conflicts are also at the heart of the works that another Sámi artist, Anders Suna, will be showing in the pavilion. From the age of 6, said Suna, who is from Sweden, he wants to be both an artist and a reindeer herder. But, he added, “things are working better with artists right now.”
For the past 50 years, his family has been embroiled in what he described as a lawsuit between David and Goliath against the Swedish state over the decision to deprive his family of his herd rights and relocate members from their traditional home.
“It’s as if they’re taking away your identity,” Suna said of the conflict. “They take away your livelihood. They take away your culture. “
Early in his career, his paintings dealt with broader topics, Suna said, but as the family began to exhaust legal options, his work, which now includes large-scale installations, became more focused on those struggles.
“We tried everything else,” Suna said. “We had tried in court; we tried to meet with the minister, but nothing happened, “he added. “So I almost naturally started putting it into my art instead.”
For Venice, Suna has created a series of paintings representing significant moments from his family’s court battle, which he will show with documents and audio from the court proceedings.
More abstract, but no less politically justified is the contribution of the third artist, whose work will enter the pavilion, performance and theater director Paulia Feodorov. Although initially reluctant to accept the invitation, she said she was convinced when Garcia-Anton claimed the Venice Biennale was a megaphone that could boost environmental and local activity.
“The main core of my work is the survival of forests,” said Feodorov, who hails from Finland. “And the biggest act of colonial violence against the Sami was the industrial logging in our lands,” which began after World War II, she said. “Our land has become republican” and the trees have been “cut down,” she added.
Her contributions to Venice will include live performances and recordings. But it has also developed a new idea designed to protect these forests in a tangible and immediate way: it will auction off rights to view certain pieces of land and use the proceeds to buy the land in question. (Although the actual bidding will take place off-site, the auction will be included in the artist’s performance in Venice.)
All three artists expressed hope that their work at the Biennale would not only raise awareness of the conditions in which the Sámi live, but also change those conditions. There are already signs that Scandinavian countries are at least becoming more vigilant: when the new National Museum of Art in Oslo opens, in June, for example, the first work visitors will encounter will be the work of a reindeer skull, which appeared in the Document.
Ricard, an art historian, said that although experience has taught her to be skeptical, she hopes the Biennale show will be a significant step in Sámi sovereignty.
“I don’t think the Venice pavilion will turn into real political gains,” she said. “But art is ahead. This can generate a sense of resilience and survival, which can lead to the renewal of indigenous peoples’ space. “
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