On the occasion of the exhibition Material Sensitivity and Material Power with Iver Jåks , we welcome you to the seminar "(...) it may well be that the cheap, simple thing is greater art (...)" - a seminar about Iver Jåks' practices and work
Place: Trekanten
Date: Saturday 19 November 2022
Time: 10.30 AM - 16.30PM
The seminar is moderated by Kristoffer Dolmen and Hanne Hammer Stien, the curators of the exhibition.
The event is free, open to everyone and requires no registration.
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Drawing was an important part of the artistic practice of the Sami artist Ánddir Ivvár Ivvár (1932–2007), or Iver Jåks. To a wide audience, he is primarily known for his graphics, sculptures and installations, but an informed, and perhaps primarily Sámi audience, knows that duodji was central to Jåk's work. Broadly, duodji can be defined as all creative activity, including immaterial practices.
Duodji is a central motif in the extensive drawing material Jåks left behind. Among other things, the material includes documentation of duodji taken from museum collections, documentation of duodji taken from different areas of Sápmi and sketches for own works. The drawings left behind also show the breadth of Jåks' work. He was an advocate of Sámi culture, hence the nickname ofelaš or pathfinder, and contributed in many different areas within Sámi and Norwegian society, from the educational system to organizational life and museum work. Jåks illustrated a number of books, designed exhibitions and, in connection with public commissions, he made drawings that are reminiscent of engineering as well as architectural drawings.
In parallel with Jåks drawing, he wrote countless texts in which he explained matters concerning Sámi culture and social life. The desire to contribute to one's own and others' knowledge development, both on a larger and smaller scale, constantly appears as a fundamental objective for Jåks. In his complex and expansive practice, drawing was one of the methods used to create and convey knowledge. In the seminar, we aim to shed light on this knowledge by looking more closely at Jåks' various practices and work, all the while with an awareness of the drawing's central position.
Program
10.30-11.00: Doors open, coffee and tea
11.00-11.30: Gunnvor Guttorm: Iver Jåks' thoughts as duojár
11.30-12.00: Anna Carin Hedberg and Rikke Lundgreen: Drawing as sensing
12.00-12.30: Lunch
12.30-13.00: Káren Elle Gaup: Bååstede - restoration of Sami cultural heritage: Background, process and why restoration
13.00-14.30: niilas helander: Abstraction as repetition - about Sámi aesthetics
14.30-15.00: Break
15.00-15.30: Trude Fonneland: Iver Jåks and the Sami culture
15.30-16.00: Elin Haugdal: Iver Jåks' working drawings for Nordlys/Guovssahas
16.00-16.30: Irene Snarby: Runebommehammeren: Site-specific art out of course
Information about the participants of the seminar
Kristoffer Dolmen is senior curator for the Nordlandsmuseet and works in particular with their program for Bodø 2024. He has a Master's degree from the University of Bergen and Stockholm University, as well as an MA (master's program in curatorial practice) from UiB and a Post Master from the Royal Konsthögskolan, Stockholm. He is a board member of OCA, on the committee for visual art / organiser support in the Culture Council and a member of the artistic council for Bodø 2024. Former director / artistic director of the Sámi center for contemporary art in Karasjok (2018-2022). Has previously worked for Nordland County Council, Se kunst i Nord-Norge and the Nordnorske Kunstutstilling and Bodø Art Association.
Trude Fonneland is professor of cultural studies at UiT Norway's Arctic University. Her research interests are linked to the fields of museology, contemporary religion and tourism and she is part of the research groups SAMFORSK (Research on Sámi Research and on Representation of Sámi Cultural Heritage) and NESAR (The New Sámi Renaissance: Nordic Colonialism, Social Change and Indigenous Cultural Policy).
Káren Elle Gaup has been conservator at the Norwegian Folk Museum since 2018, responsible for the museum's Sámi collection. She is from Guovdageaidnu / Kautokeino, grew up in a reindeer herding family and speaks Northern Sámi. Through studies at the University of Oslo, Gaup is trained as a folklorist. She has previously been manager of the Riddo Duottar Museum in Finnmark (2007-2014) and project manager for Bååstede (2014-2018).
Elin Haugdal is professor of art history at UiT Norway's Arctic University. Haugdal has worked with architecture in the northern areas and in Sápmi in particular, in addition to landscape architecture, photography and contemporary art. Her most recent publications are "Taking ownership". Sámi building-related art" (Kunst og kultur 2-3, 2022); "Belonging(s)"/"Belonging(s)" (in Public memory, public art, Enqvist et al. ed., Statens Konstråd, 2022); "Sámi architecture in Norwegian Architecture" (in Huksendáidda, Solbakken ed., National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, 2022). Haugdal leads the research group Worlding Northern Art (WONA).
Anna Carin Hedberg is a visual artist and curator of communication at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. She is educated at the Art Academy in Trondheim and Högskolan för design och konsthantverk in Gothenburg. Hedberg's practice is within socially engaged art that is based on participatory processes. See www.hedbergmoi.net.
niilas helander is a poet, visual artist and writer who currently resides in Athens. His work addresses themes such as history, cultural memory, and politics, especially in the context of issues surrounding language, land, climate crisis and decolonial struggles.
Rikke Lundgreen is a visual artist and project manager at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. She is educated at Staffordshire University and Chelsea College of Art, in addition to the University of Oslo. Lundgreen's practice is interdisciplinary and within a number of techniques such as drawing, film, sound and installations that start from a performative event. See www.rikkelundgreen.com.
Petter-Iŋggá Gunvor / Gunvor Guttorm was born in Kárášjohka / Karasjok, on the Norwegian side of Sápmi, and lives with his family in Jåhkåmåhkke, on the Swedish side of Sápmi. She completed her PhD in duodji at UiT Norway's Arctic University in 2003. Guttorm is currently a professor of duodji at Sámi allaskuvla / Sámi University, in Guovdageaidnu / Kautokeino. Since the 1990s, she has patiently fought for duodji education at a higher level, founded on Sámi worldview, philosophy and language. Together with colleagues, she has built up a BA and an MA program in duodji, which are the only ones of their kind in Sápmi. Guttorm has also for a period been rector at the Sámi University College.
Irene Snarby is a PhD student at UiT Norway's Arctic University. Snarby has researched and worked with Sami art since the early 1990s. In his PhD project, Snarby examines the art of the Sámi artist Iver Jåks (1932–2007). She puts his work in context with both contemporary art and duodji as a separate knowledge system. Snarby has worked as a curator at Riddo Duottar Museat (RDM) in Karasjok. In addition, she has been a member of the purchasing committee of the Sámi Parliament. In addition to working as a consultant and curator, Snarby has written a number of articles, edited several publications and lectured on Sámi art.
Hanne Hammer Stien is an associate professor in art history at the Academy of Fine Arts and deputy director at Norway's Arctic University Museum and Academy for Art, both at UiT Norway's Arctic University. Her research interests include museology and curatorial practice, photo history and photo theory, contemporary art and art theory, and Sámi and Greenlandic art. Stien has for a long period worked as an art critic and she has a curatorial practice. She sits on the R&D committee of the Culture Council, is a member of the artistic council of the Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) and is a board member of the Stiftelsen kunstkritikk. Stien is a member of the research group Worlding Northern Art (WONA) and participates in the research project Urban Transformation in a Warming Artic (UrbTrans).
The seminar is supported by the Sami Parliament, the Sparebankstiftelsen and Fritt Ord.
Picture:
Iver Jåks
Norway's Arctic University Museum, UiT
© Iver Jåks/ BONO 2022
Photo: Olga Kvalheim
