As a prologue to his upcoming exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall (4 Sep – 8 Nov 2020), Joar Nango made three films, together with Sámi filmmaker Ken Are Bongo, that explore Sámi architecture in a TV show format. The series was produced by Bergen Kunsthall as part of the official festival programme for the Bergen International Festival in May 2020, which could not be held in a physical form due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The series was filmed with a mobile TV studio during travels through the northern landscape, meeting guests for interviews and visiting key architectural sites.
Part 1: On materiality and resource economy
The first episode will look at the northern philosophy of self-sufficiency and what Nango calls indigenuity: an approach of resource economy and sustainability, working with on-site solutions, as part of indigenous and Sami improvisational competences. Nango will talk with curator Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation, Canada), art-historian Elin Haugdal (The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø) and artist Elin Már Øyen Vister about material philosophy in indigenous and local contexts and spatial productions.
Part 2: On nomadism and flow
Broadcasting from the Mercedes Sprinter he once drove from Tromsø to Athens as part of his participation in documenta 14, this is an episode on the road, looking at migration, relocation and the nomadic. The car will later play an important role in the work towards the exhibition and in the exhibition itself in Bergen. With anthropologist Dimitris Dalakoglou (VU University Amsterdam), archeologist on the contemporary Thora Petursdottir (University of Oslo), artist/lawyer Ande Somby from Tromsø, car-mechanic Lan Paulsen and artist, composer, filmmaker and producer Elle Márjá Eira.
Part 3: On decolonization and architecture
What are indigenous people? What is architecture? What is decolonization? Together with art historian Mathias Danbolt (University of Copenhagen) and architect Chris Cornelius (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Nango looks at the representation and visualization of Sami culture, architecture and life. An example is Knud Leem’s book «Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper deres Tungemaal, Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse» (1767), which features a series of illustrations based on earlier paintings, which Danbolt recently discovered in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and which will feature in the exhibition in Bergen.
The Festival Exhibition 2020 and Post-Capitalist Architecture TV is supported by Arts Council Norway, Fritt Ord, The Sámi Parliament, International Sámi Film Institute, Bergesenstiftelsen, H. Westfal-Larsen og Hustru Anna Westfal-Larsen’s Almennyttige Fond, Norske Kunstforeninger.
Bergen Kunsthall is supported by Kulturdepartementet, Bergen kommune, Vestland fylkeskommune, Sparebanken Vest.