Máhcaheapmi (Responses) #1: ‘Stories of the Blue Night' conference

For this one-day conference – including talks, panel discussions and screenings – Sámi artists, curators, cultural managers and thinkers detailed the resistance practices they have employed in recent decades to secure the recognition of their history as an Indigenous people.

The discussions analysed the way that artistic, museographic and cultural practices have been key to this struggle and to ways of configuring possible decolonization processes. With the participation of artists such as Máret Ánne Sara, Elina Waage Mikalsen, Dine Arnannguaq Fenger Lynge, Geir Tore Holm and Tomas Colbengtson, as well as researcher Eva Maria Fjellheim, activist Petra Laiti, and cultural organisers Sajje Solbakk and Anne May Olli, the conference explored critical pathways toward rethinking conceptions of the autonomy, sovereignty and production of Indigenous peoples in the context of contemporary art.
 
These interventions were complemented by local respondents including the Ayuujk linguist Yásnaya E. Aguilar, the P’urhepecha artists of Colectivo Cherani and the experts in Indigenous law Érika Bárcenas and Orlando Aragón.

Below you can download a list of the full programme, as well as watch recordings of three of the discussions.

Translations from Spanish: Neil Fawle
Subtitles: Dalia Huerta Cano