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

The article explores the construction of Sami national heritage taking works from a touring exhibition, Gierdu, as the object for exploration. The exhibition opened in 2009 displaying 27 artworks from the art collection at RiddoDuottarMuseat in Karasjok in Norway. The exploration is contextualised as an understanding of heritage, tradition and modernity as dynamic concepts dealing with how we interpret and validate the past in the present. Artworks, both categorised as duodji, and dáidda are on display in Gierdu. In the early years of the Sami ethno-political movement, duodji was considered authentic Sami, while dáidda was considered non-Sami. In recent years, both Sami and other scholars have questioned the difference, claiming the relation between tradition and modernity as appropriations, dialogues and encounters rather than oppositions. Through a reading of a selection of works from the exhibition, several appropriations are found. One appropriation is how duodji is institutionalised in the art museum. Another is how Western, modernist art is included in a Sami collection of art. A third appropriation is how contemporary art practices as assemblage reintroduces magic and ritual to the gallery, from which such distractions previously were removed. The most important construction of heritage in Gierdu is the reconstruction of a space important for duodji - operating between the sacred and the profane. The reconstructed space has the same, dynamic qualities, but instead of a space between the sacred and the profane, art in the reconstructed space operates between tradition and modernity.