Sámi Dáiddamagasiidna stewards one of the largest collections of Sámi art, with major funding from the Sámediggi/Sámi Parliament in Kárášjohka. The Sámediggi also supports our efforts at local, national, and international dissemination of Sámi artwork. As part of our mission to facilitate access to the collection, artworks will be regularly exhibited at the Sámediggi main building through four rotating exhibitions each year. Each exhibition is installed in advance of the Sámediggi’s plenary sessions, creating a new presentation for every plenary meeting. Below, you will find the curatorial statement for Sámi Dáiddamagasiidna’s current display at the Sámediggi in Kárášjohka.
GROUNDED STRUCTURE:
Sámi Approaches to Built Environments
RiddoDuottarMuseat-Sámi Dáiddamagasiidna presents a selection of Sámi artists illustrating the ways in which Sámi people relate to local built environments. Buildings can reveal people’s relationships to place: culture provides the infrastructure for creating functional and vibrant spaces. For these Sámi artists, built structures become part of a dialogue that links memory with contemporary concerns. Each selected artist highlights a particular element of structure to illuminate Indigenous philosophies of space that have evolved across communities.
Trygve Lund Guttormsen and Hans Ragnar Mathisen use minimal color and line to describe fundamental aspects of how traditional and modern buildings inhabit land.
Folke Fjällström, Aage Gaup, Pia Jannok, Max Lundström, and Ansgar Ole Olsen focus on forms found in nature. Their works include circles, slopes, piles, and stacks inspired by the shapes of mountains, trees, and landscapes that inform the logic of Indigenous structures.
Matti Aikio, Tomas Colbengtson, Hanne Grete Einarsen, and Britta Marakatt-Labba look at the relationship between buildings, people, and more-than human kin, acknowledging the layered responsibilities inherent to creating spaces.
The act of building and related development projects also raises concerns about respectful land-use. Viktoria Andersson, Joar Nango, and Anders Sunna create works that speak to the ways in which Sámi living landscapes exist in an era of unrelenting assault from colonial culture, mining companies, and climate change.
Through duodji, paintings, prints, sculptures, glass, and photography, these Sámi artists consider how the built environment reflects our understanding of places that connect with past, present, and future generations. Together, these artworks invite audiences to contemplate our relationships with, and responsibilities to, the land we build upon.
Curator: Pablo Barrera