February 16: In situ. A podcast-conversation with artists from Norrbotten County on lived experiences and attachment to a place

20:00–21:00 In situ. A podcast-conversation with artists from Norrbotten County on lived experiences and attachment to a place. Episode 1: Katarina Pirak Sikku and Fredrik Prost speak with Sixten Liu, Curatorlab. In English.

Artists and practitioners from Norrbotten often actively challenge a harmful representation and neo-colonial perception of the region as a place available for exploitation. By embracing alternative connections between places and human experiences, this talk brings two local artists, Katarina Pirak Sikku and Fredrik Prost, to both uncover and discover the multilayered identities associated with Norrbotten.

Pirak Sikku’s practice of mapping Sámi memories and the transgenerational trauma caused by the State Institute for Racial Biology has a historical, temporal dimension closely linked to her family history. By following the racial biologists’ footprints and imitating on her own body the violence caused to her ancestors, Pirak Sikku explores the possibility of being mentally independent and her own way of defining the emotional bond between humans and place. We will hear how things which have taken place in the past and that are erased from official historiography can come back to haunt, as well as heal, a person’s mental landscape.

Prost will share the stories of loss linked to Sámi drums and noaidi, which, according to Sámi belief system, mediate the relation between people, animals, and the spiritual world. In the Sámi spiritual culture everything is interconnected, and respect for nature is always at the center. What can we learn from Sámi stories and spirituality today, in the times when so-called green transition is still connected to the ideas rooted in settler colonialism?

A collaboration with Giron Sami Theatre.