Sápmi in German Museums, New Beginnings

 

In my recent book, From Lapland to Sápmi, I touched on Sámi objects that ended up in German museums, largely in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Some were collected by tourists and amateur ethnographers; others were bought in bulk by men who purchased them on behalf of ethnographic museums. In the closing chapters of the book, I mentioned that most German institutions, like the vast Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK) in Berlin, did not have a good grasp on the provenance and history of their hundreds of Sámi objects and displayed very few.

Objects from the Sámi Collection at MEK

 I described the situation as it was in 2022, when I finished the manuscript. How much has changed in just two years! In fact, things have been in movement for several years now, but they have become much more visible since late 2021, when the Norwegian Parliament allocated a significant sum to a five-year project supervised by Cathrine Baglo that would “provide an overview of Sami collections in German museums, link collection history and object-specific knowledge, and lead to increased expertise in both German cultural heritage institutions and Sami museums.” [Nov, 2021, Norwegian Museums Association newsletter].  

 The MEK in Berlin has one of the largest collections of Sámi material in Europe (1000 objects and around 700 photographs). Aside from a few objects from the 1600s, most of the collection was gathered from 1880 and 1929 on behalf of the Museum für Völkerkunde (today the Ethnologisches Museum), not as part of European culture, but as examples of exotic international culture. The MEK now claims this material as part of its recently designated (and now searchable online) “Sámi Collection” and has shown itself eager to work with Sámi museums in the Nordic countries, specifically Ajtte in Jokkmokk, Sweden, and Siida, in Inari, Finland. The two-year project, which began in 2023, is called "The Sámi Collection at the Museum of European Cultures. A multi-perspective approach to provenance research.”

In an interview on MEK’s blog [in German, translated here from DeepL], Eeva-Kristiina Nylander, who works with both Siida in Inari and MEK, explained that “My task is to look through the entire collection and identify specific pieces that we want to take a closer look at in terms of their provenance. After that, my main task will be to coordinate the collaboration between the museum and local artisans and artists who want to study the collection and bring their knowledge and additional contexts to the project.

 “At the moment I'm doing a lot of archive research to prepare. Later on, we want to invite people to the MEK who have a special relationship with objects like these and give them the opportunity to look at the collection and choose the objects they specifically want to research. We want to do five different case studies, which can range from essays to art projects to reconstructions of objects. We want to give participants the opportunity to engage with the collection in any way they choose, to be inspired and to learn more about materials, forms and the practices associated with the objects.”

 Elsewhere in Germany, the Hamburg Art Museum held an exhibition last year, “Speaking Back: Decolonizing Nordic Narratives” with the intention that “Sámi and non-Sámi artists will critically review the Nordic colonial heritage and its linkages to German museums and colonial history in general. Even more, the exhibition gives space for a critical and responsible debate on decolonial agency and strategies of resistance.”

 Marja Helander, photo

This exhibition was followed, beginning last September and continuing through March, 2024 by a second exhibition, “The Land Has a Mind to Speak,” at Museum am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK). The museum holds a large collections of Sámi artefacts in Germany and was formerly the Ethnographic Museum in Hamburg. It features the artworks of Sissel M. Bergh, Annika Dahlsten & Markku Laakso, Marja Helander, Erica Huuva, Solveig Labba, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Outi Pieski, Katarina Pirak Sikku and Anniina Turunen, in dialogue with historical objects in the museum.

 

I knew—and hoped—when I wrote my book, From Lapland to Sápmi, that the material about repatriation, from Nordic and European museums, might well become outdated even before the book was published or soon after. The momentum is building, I’m happy to see, in Germany in particular, in the financed projects described above, and in exhibitions and workshops where Sámi duojárs (artisans) connect with museum objects in foreign museums. The objects may or may not be returned to Sápmi anytime soon, but connections are being made and all things are possible.