Constructing Sami National Heritage: Encounters Between Tradition and Modernity in Sami Art

Abstract

This article will explore the construction of Sami national heritage by analysing works from the touring exhibition Gierdu. The 27 artworks on display in Gierdu all belong to the RiddoDuottarMuseat's (RDM's) collections, comprising 1 200 artworks acquired since the early 1970s. 1 The collections, previously called The Sami Collections, are housed in Karasjok and was the first Sami cultural institution established in Norway. It opened in 1972 in a modernist building partly designed and decorated by the late Sami artist Iver Jåks (1932-2007). The establishment of one's own cultural institutions has been part of indigenous people's self-determination; to claim the position of subject has been a strategy to counteract the previous objectification in museums and art galleries. 2 In the Norwegian part of Sápmi, both political and cultural Sami institutions have evolved in response to the cultural revitalisation the last 40 years. 3 Initially, The Sami Collections was mainly a museum of Sami cultural history, but one that also collected art. A committee of Sami artists has selected the acquisitions, and artists from all over Sápmi are represented. The art collection, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Sami Parliament, is one of many examples of the institutional affirmation that have taken place. In Sami, the title Gierdu means "connection" or "circle", which relates to the traditional Sami understanding of time as cyclic rather than linear. The subtitle of the project, "Movements in the Sami Art World", addresses the project's goal to show movements in Sami art, and the dynamics and diversity in contemporary Sami art practices. 4 RDM cooperated with SKINN (Se Kunst i Nord-Norge) to curate Gierdu, which opened in 2009. 5 The objects for exploring the construction of Sami cultural heritage will be works that were on display in Gierdu, not the entire collection. The exploration

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“…Revitalisation is always about an interpretation of a culture, and this interpretation changes from person to person [9]. Even today's contemporary art may eventually become a tradition and be traditionalized as well; the traditional and the modern are constantly reinvented [21].…”

“…They have utilised methods of photography art, video art, and other contemporary art forms to analyse their own heritage, culture, traditions, and world views [17,18], and to apply their multi-ethnic background and environmental knowledge as a basis for their art [19]. Many indigenous contemporary artists have become well-known in combining traditional crafts with conceptual and visual artwork [18,20,21]. In this sense, they have pointed the way to integrate traditional cultural heritage into expressions of contemporary art, at least in Lapland.…”

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“…The Sámi are an indigenous people with their own cultures, languages and, to an extent, livelihoods. Contemporary Sámi art has been recognised in Nordic countries [45][46][47][48][49][50]. The Sámi pedagogy, developed in collaboration with other indigenous education models, responds to the educational needs of the Sámi people and creates theories and practices on their own premises [51][52][53].…”

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