11 Sweden-based Sámi Artists Addressing Indigenous Pasts, Presents, and Futures
The 2015 book Contemporary Sámi Art and Design (Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing) was the first…
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The company states:
We belong in the Arctic. The region’s conflicts and encounters connected to culture, language, ethnicity, and nature form the framework for our performances. We want to reach an audience in the whole Arctic region. Our performances combine Sámi, Finnish and Norwegian languages.
We create performances that thrill, challenge, ask questions and entertain the audience. We are interested in provocation as well as laughter.
We are inspired by the tensions in our society. Our performances are based on a need for conversation or negotiation that needs to take place here and now, live with our audiences. Our artistic methods and forms of organization are adapted to each project we undertake.
The forms of expression we use are varied and heterogeneous. We are not afraid to mix drama, storytelling, documentary texts, subjective opinions, poetry and satire. We have developed new texts for the stage for years.
Credit: This video was originally published by Ferske Scener on August 30, 2019. COURTESY FERSKE SCENER.
Read more about the company on their website.
Muohtadivggažat / The Sound of Snow
The performance Muohtadivggažat / The Sound of Snow opened at the Arctic Arts Festival in Harstad, Norway, in June 2021. The Sound of Snow is a multilingual performance based on incredible, yet true, stories from the borderland between Norway, Finland, and Russia; stories about escape and homeland, about a legendary bar in Boris Gleb, about sudden gaps in closed borders, about the joy of a violin, and the world’s deepest human-made hole. And above all: about what a good story can mean. The language on stage is based on the mother tongue of the actors. It varies between Norwegian, Sámi, Russian, Finnish and English. The actors also sing songs in their native tongue, as well as joik (traditional Sámi singing).
The performance was supported by BarentsKult.
Read more about The Sound of Snow here.
Credit: ALL VIDEOS COURTESY FERSKE SCENER
This story is part of the Barents Secretariat Spotlight. View more content from the Spotlight here.
The Norwegian Barents Secretariat strongly condemns Russia’s unprecedented military aggression against Ukraine.
The Barents Cooperation was established as a peace project in 1993, after 45 years of cold war. The foundation of the Barents Cooperation has always been people-to-people contact. The goal of the Barents cooperation is to remove cultural barriers and to build bridges across borders. During almost 30 years, we have gone from closed borders to close ties between the people in the Barents Region. The cooperation between people from all areas of society like schools, municipalities, NGOs and cultural institutions, the so-called people-to people-perspective, is an important keystone. Through meetings between people in the region we build down barriers and increase our mutual understanding.
Unfortunately, people-to-people cross-border cooperation in the north has long been constrained due to the increasingly authoritarian regime in Russia. The situation for civil society is now extremely difficult, and the uncertainty arising from Russia’s military attacks makes effective cross-border cooperation even more challenging. Unfortunately, the impacts of this will be felt at the local level, particularly by people living in the north.
In our spotlight the Norwegian Barents Secretariat will focus on the positive and successful cooperation between artists and cultural institutions that normally takes place across the Norwegian-Russian border.
While the Norwegian Barents Secretariat stands behind the Norwegian government’s demand that Russia immediately ceases its military operations and seeks a peaceful solution, we will continue to support people-to-people cooperation and contact. In the current situation we have suspended contact and cooperation with official Russian entities, but encourage contact and cooperation with independent Russian artists and organisations.
