Flag of the Sami
Outi Pieski Tate St Ives. February 9th - May 6th 2024
Outi Pieski is a Sami artist from Finland.
The preview was buzzing with interested people delighted to see something new.
There are large hanging brightly coloured chevrons of long tassels which refer to the traditional clothing of the Sami, whose culture and language was suppressed for many years by Christian colonisers who regarded it as pagan and evil. The Sami are the only designated indigenous people in Europe.
More recently the Sami have revived their community and are engaged in struggles with the Scandinavian governments because their reindeer herding and salmon fishing is threatened by wind farms, hydro electric power and graphite mining - all part of green power developments.
Outi Pieski also presents her paintings, which are textured expanses decorated with textile, some with small ornamental figures added in front, some with tassels or ribbon or bejewelled with crystal gems.
These paintings are unlike anything we are used to and combine folk elements with abstract paint marks that evoke strange landscapes.
Then there is one area with grids of photographs of traditional women’s hats, red with other bright ornamental trims and a curved shape rising above the head. These are being found and ‘rematriated’ from distant museums. Outi Pieski has been involved in community workshops to revive the making of them.
The artist was present, wearing colourful traditional dress and the next day gave some talks with an interpreter and signer. Unfortunately the difficult acoustics that Tate has failed to overcome rendered the one I attended virtually inaudible but I heard the unfamiliar Sami language and sensed a serious artist very involved with especially the Sami women.
The lengthy labels and statements on the walls refer to many political issues and also to an implied belief in evil spirits. As often happens I felt these issues were not expressed in the art- which concentrated on being romantically evocative and attractively decorative. Some labels refer to a belief that women are the guardians of the earth, which I find a divisive view.
However I felt moved to spend a couple of hours reading online about the Sami so the fact of the exhibition had caused me to find out a lot about Sami history and current problems.
There are some parallels with the suppression of Cornish language and culture and our efforts to keep it alive, so often expressed through particular festivals that require dressing in particular ways.
I would have liked to see and hear some Sami music and events.
Sami culture has been very connected with eating reindeer meat and salmon, making it at odds with current trends towards not killing animals.
Someone at the event who had visited the northern areas where the Sami live mentioned to me that their communities suffer from alcohol and drug problems, as all communities do, but maybe parallel with the similar pre Christian culture of Native Americans, similarly seen as once very much at one with the environment, respecting its life with an animist spiritual consciousness, which has conflicted with our modern world.
I found online accounts of how reindeer eat fly agaric mushrooms and the Sami via drinking reindeer urine were able to experience hallucinogenic visions more safely than by eating the fungi directly. There are ancient connections with the Father Christmas story.
So, a new show to surprise visitors and engage them with distant lands - thankfully not another artist parachuted in to swiftly pick up a few cliches about Cornwall, but an artist working in her own homeland and bringing us the results.
The mystery of how these visiting artists from foreign lands are chosen persists. Do any Cornish artists take our current preoccupations to Finland?
No comments:
Post a Comment