Institutional Acknowledgements: Introduction to the Special Issue ‘The Art of Nordic Colonialism’

Abstract

“Baajh vaeride årrodh!” Let the mountains live. This South Sámi phrase was one of the rallying cries that Sámi activists had painted on banners that blocked the entrance to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in Ušllu/ Oslove/Oslo at their week-long occupation that started on February ,  (Fig. ). The protest was initiated by members of NSR Nuorat (Youth of theNorwegian SámiNational Association) and Natur og Ungdom (Young Friends of the Earth Norway) to mark the five hundred days of failure of the Norwegian government to act upon the ruling of its Supreme Court, which had deemed the building of wind turbines around Fovsen-Njaarke to be a violation of human rights, as the construction and operation of the wind turbines and their infrastructure destroyed winter pastures and disrupted reindeer migration routes. As long asdeliberate inactionby theNorwegian government persists, the activists from NSR Nuorat, Natur og Ungdom, and their allies made clear that they would continue protesting until their demands were heard and implemented: the wind turbines must be removed and the land restored to its caretakers. During the occupation, protestors mobilized multiple media to facilitate Sámi sovereignty, from disseminating photographs and streaming videos live across social media, as well as creating duodji (Fig. ). As they described themselves, “We have settled down with reindeer skins, banners, and traditional Sámi weaving, and fill the entire lobby”. Four days into the protest, one activist proudly wore their new gákti – completed in situ in the midst of the protest by another duojár – exclaiming their pride to allies gathered outside. As scholar and duojár LiisaRávná Finbog astutely noted, by preparing to enact their protest with the aid of woolen threads, looms, and sewing machines, NSR Nuorat tapped into a centuries-long custom of Sámi creative practices as resistance to colonization. In fact, many Sámi activists brandished jorggogákti, the deliberate reversal of gákti, worn inside-out. Deployed specifically, Finbog explains, in times of “great injustice and opposition”, jorggogákti is a refusal of access to the personal and cultural codes embedded in one’s gákti, thereby registering a silent and profound act of resistance. While haunting images of state police forcefully removing non-violent Sámi protesters circulated widely, headlines in the Norwegian art world appeared to be bewitched by a possible “culture war” brewing somewhere else in the same city and at the same time; was the beloved nineteenth-century Norwegian painter Christian Krohg “cancelled” for his colonial iconography at Norway’s newly