Everything is Speaking – Stories in Motion

The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary works brings new perspectives and stories into the collection. The assembled artworks explore relevant social issues and convey the cultural diversity of Northern Norway and Sápmi.

The exhibition is divided into three themes: “The Gaze”, “Food Security – Food Sovereignty”, and “Fish, Gender and Sexuality”. The first section, “The Gaze”, presents artworks that open up new dialogues around some of the region’s histories. The artists in this section pose questions about society's existing power structures as manifested through the acts of looking and being looked at. It shines a spotlight on the colonial attitudes that previously portrayed other cultures as exotic and inferior, colonial attitudes which Western museums have contributed to, and that have more recently led to debates about what a museum should be. Several Sámi artists have engaged deeply in the struggle to reclaim their own culture and have created new perspectives on Sámi art through aesthetic and political interventions. 

Food Security – Food Sovereignty

Questions around “Food Security and Food Sovereignty” are influenced to a large degree by standards of living, settlement patterns, environment and the climate. This theme is especially important in times marked by crises. The right to control one’s own food production through access to land and water, is often discussed in this region. A national system exists in parallel to local determinations and Indigenous rights, and these sometimes come into conflict with each other. Several of the artists included in this section have become politically active in the fight for ocean resources, sustainable coastal fishing, and locally sourced food. Sámi reindeer herding communities have had to become similarly engaged to defend their right to reindeer herding which remains a central pillar in Sámi food sovereignty.

The final section “Fish, Gender and Sexuality” explores the connection this section pose question between the ocean’s resources and power, as well as the links between fishing luck, faith and superstition, the work of fisherfolk, sexuality and gender. Some works deal with a fishing culture and traditions that was more male-dominated. These works are juxtaposed with contemporary works that challenge the historiography of this culture and question normative ideas around identity, gender and sexuality.

The title of the exhibition is taken from Sissel Mutale Bergh’s video installation Everything is Speking / Alt Snakker. The title is inspired by a phrase from the coastal area outside the Froan Islands and Fosen/Fovsen peninsula in Trøndelag/Trööndelage, where many old folk stories start with the phrase, “There once was a time when everything spoke.” The expression indicated that it is not only humans that speak, but that the land, animals and objects have a voice as well. 

The Gaze

How are individuals and groups defined through the eyes of others? 

In this part of the exhibition, artists visually explore stereotypes, national symbols, and how society’s power structures influence people’s attitudes toward each other. 

In 1839, a French research expedition traveled to northern Norway, Sápmi and Spitsbergen to map and document the region. Aboard the ship were various researchers and the French royal court painter François-Auguste Biard, whose task was to document the journey through illustrations. The peoples of the North, and particularly the Sámi – their lives, culture and physiology – were described, illustrated, and disseminated throughout Europe. This escalated to race-based research practices wherein Sámi human remains were stolen from their graves and used to "study" their differences. The exhibition takes a critical look at these injustices that remain central in contemporary debates around repatriation of human remains and cultural heritage.

The Norwegian state’s Norwegianization policy, adopted in 1852, was another injustice committed against the Sámi and national minorities, which is thoroughly documented in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report from 2023. The report gives museums, which today are charged with safeguarding cultural heritage, a special responsibility to elevate perspectives and histories that challenge earlier representations. 

Several of the artists here play with staging and self-staging as a strategy to direct the gaze between external and internal identity markers, highlighting which roles these play in visual culture, both historically and in the present. There are also works which revolve around the theme of war, either in solidarity with victims of war or as self-reflexive perspectives on their own role in these conflicts.

Fish, Gender & Sexuality

How can the old northern Norwegian term “haill” be understood and nuanced in light of rorbu humor (vulgar humor associated with the dwellings of fisherfolk)), queer feminist listening to the coast’s cultural landscape, and speculative links between the formations of the landscape and Sámi etymology? This part of the opening exhibition juxtaposes newer artworks that touch on fish, gender, and sexuality against older works from Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum’s own collection, which in large part present the fishing occupation in a more homogenous way.