In a parallell universe

Performance-and installation artist Marita Isobel Solberg is director at Sámi Dáiddamusea for two months. She's praying for it not to go away.

Solberg was chosen as director once the project started in October last year. She was there to fill several roles, one of them being a performance artist at the opening of the exhibition There is No.

She finds it incredibly important to highlight how a museum dedicated to sami art would work in real life.

- I have tremendous respect that an institution pushes the comfort zone in such a way. Dearing to do a stunt like this, she says.

Brings it forward

She hopes the museum performance doesn’t end by these two months. A sami art museum has been in the loop for decades. Many people have thought it will never happen.

- The danger is that no one brings it forward after this. I hope the exhibition will reappear. It’s like something has been awakened from the dead, and you can’t just take that away, she stresses.

Herself an artist

The director is no stranger to performance. She works with both performances and installations, and travels the world with her art. Her goal as the director of Sámi Dáiddamusea is to stay in a parallel world, as real as everything else. That’s how she entered the project.

Speech as a work of art

Solberg uses different materials and techniques in her art. The common trait is the sami influence, especially from the duodji tradition.

- I grew up in Manndalen in Kåfjord and my mother has always made traditional duodji. It’s been with me since I was a child, she says.

The director held the opening speech on both sami and norwegian, without really knowing that much sami. It wasn’t much spoken around the house growing up. But she threw herself into deep water.

- I got feedback from sami people understanding it all, others not understanding anything I said. But people said the speech was like a work of sound art. It’s a matter of trying and daring, Marita Isobel Solberg says.

Photo: The director at the piece of Alf Salo, an artist from Kåfjord too and someone who knew quite well.