Indigenous peoples’ voices have gained more and more attention over the years in the art world. This year, the world’s largest art event Dokumenta 14 has taken Sami and other indigenous art into their heart. This historic year when it coincides with the 100th anniversary of the gathering of Sami peolple in Trondheim, where our own Elsa Laula Renberg was the great leading star.
In the exhibition “Sápmi i 100”, there are three Sami artists and an inuitist artist who have joined forces with great dedication, current topics and strong expressions.
Åtna historvjie/ Eie historien/ Owning history – Tomas Colbengtson
Tomas Colbengtson’s art is often inspired from experiences from his upbringing in a Sami family in Tärna. His family’s history and living conditions are merged with Sami people historical experiences of forced relocation, oppression and loss of language. His art illustrates the pain, the lost and the struggle for identity and culture from the Sami perspective. Colbengtson incorporate the South Sami culture with its pattern, palette and design into his distinctive way of combining glass and photographic images. He expresses a loss of memories and privations in his quiet, but expressive work.
Dalvedh – Sissel M Bergh
Dalvedh is a South Sami word, and means “what has been long gone, till it appear again”.
Dalvedh is an art and research project that portrays history in a South Sami perspective, a multi-faceted and colorful video installation on South Sami culture, language and experience that gives the culture’s legitimate place in Scandinavian history.
Artist Sissel M Bergh has completed the project in collaboration with composer Frode Fjellheim and a number of researchers, South Sami culture agents, historians, archaeologists and linguists.
We are still here – Anders Sunna
Anders Sunna has grown up in a reindeer herding family in Kieksiäisvaara, but lives currently in Jokkmokk. Sunni’s powerful art of resistance has a glow to its imagery, revolving the Sami culture, history and his family’s conflicts with public administration. Sunna works in thick layers of color, graffiti, collage technique and print, and all his art are depicting Sami experiences such as oppression, vulnerability and the research of race.
Åpningsseremoni – Louise Fontain
In Louise / Najavaraq art it is a quest for identity and belonging. There is a strong sense of presence, and at the same time a comment on today’s Greenland and indigenous peoples issues. She reminds us who we are right now and what´s beginning to disappear from the world we know today.
2017 8. – 22. July at VEFSN MUSEUM/ JACOBSENBRYGGA, MOSJØEN
Organizer: Vefsn Museum
Project Manager: Solum Communication
Producer: Sami Center for Contemporary Art (SDG)
