Capital, Colonization, Contemporaneity: The Architecture Behind Joar Nango’s Sámi Shelters
Written by Thierry Jasmin
Edited by Bella Carver
In an interview with Pin-Up Magazine, Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango (b. 1979) explains that “colonization and architecture are not separate phenomena.”1 Nango makes the salient observation that no Sámi institution has been designed by Sámi architects, even though they certainly exist.2 Therefore, it is important to ask how Sáminess is represented in the architecture of these institutions and if this representation should be considered an appropriation or a contribution to Sámi culture. This essay will establish that the contemporaneity of Sámi architecture is characterized by a particular use of materials that is based on nomadic vernacular architecture, but brought into the future by critiquing colonial notions of land rooted in capitalism. Nango’s brilliant installation Sámi Shelters #1-5 (2009-2014) purposefully avoids this important architectural feature to critique the “Giant Lávvu Syndrome,” a popular appropriation of Sámi architecture that reduces an anti-colonial use of materials to mere form.
Figure 1. Magda Eide Jessen and Vidar Corn Jessen (Photograph Elin Haugdal), The Sámi Museum (Sámiid Vuorká-Dávvirat), 1970–72, Karasjok, Norway.
In “‘It’s Meant to Decay’: Contemporary Sámi Architecture and the Rhetoric of Materials,” art historian Erin Haugdal explains that during the 1970s, architects were increasingly aware that public buildings in Sápmi, a region covering the north of Fennoscandia, should embody Sámi identity. Due to the modernist trend, concrete was seen as potentially achieving this goal: “a simple, naked and ‘honest’ use of materials was integral to the buildings’ rhetoric.”3 Raw or stained pine was also prominent in Nordic architecture. The first cultural complex in Sápmi, the Sámi museum in Karasjok, Norway (1970-72) (fig. 1) is characterized by this new attention to materials. This permits the museum to connect to the land symbolically. Instead of towering over the nearby trees, mountain plateau, and Kárášjohka river, the building extends horizontally and includes the site’s physical characteristics, evident in the materials for the structure and the surface materials.4 For example, the office wing is characterized by black-stained pine panels. Designed by Sámi artist Iver Jåks (1932–2007) in collaboration with local craftsman John Ole Andersen (1932-), the exhibition space is grounded in raw concrete by leaving marks of formwork. The walls are made of pine and the floors of slate and sisal. The simultaneous attention to materials and the inclusion of Sámi people in the design is integral to a respectful depiction of Sáminess. Additions like the knob of the pinewood door (fig. 2) accentuate these familiar and practical materials.5
Figure 2. Iver Jåks (Photograph: Elin Haugdal), Doorknob to the Sámi Museum in Karasjok.
Furthermore, the construction of the Sámi Museum has critical implications for socio-political issues; it was built to resist the Norwegian government’s discriminatory laws of education and assimilation. It was common for authorities in Norway, Sweden, and Finland at the time to build in Sámi areas to support their interests. As in Canada, boarding schools for Sámi people were erected, promoting Norwegian language and culture.6 These schools thus contradicted Sami education’s basic principle of “knowledge [never being] an end in itself but [something that is] generally applied in concrete situations.”7 Therefore, the building’s connection to the land is not only important for its representation of Sámi culture but also for its anti-colonial critique. The combination of modernism and Sámi culture avoids divisions of cultures and people, avoiding capitalist notions of class division.
Figure 3. Unknown architect. Lávvu, 19th century, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sami tent.jpg.
Figure 4. Unknown architect. Goahti, 2011, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skansen29.jpg.
In the 1980s and 1990s, architects in Sápmi started using the materials characteristic of Sámi architecture, using them according to their usual purpose or ascribing new meanings.8 Usually, they were inspired by the lávvu (fig. 3) and the goahti (fig. 4). However, the lávvu and the goahti are different. The former is mobile and temporary and the latter, immobile and solid. According to Haugdal, the architecture of the Árdna or “Treasure” pavilion at the University of Tromsø (2004) (fig. 5), placed next to a goahti, reflects this use of materials. This is because the architects, Jåks and Andersen, found natural materials in Sámi areas and used them according to Sámi traditions of craftsmanship.9 For example, the heart pine that can be seen in the load-bearing structure was collected by experts of Sámi building traditions. Their ancient customs were respected, as the wood was logged during a waxing moon before being debarked and dried. Similarly, the exterior paneling is made of untreated pine and the roof of aspen shingles. Deliberately, the stone used for the floor and the fireplace was found in Sámi areas. Haugdal remarks that this attention to the provenance and use of materials could be seen as superficial symbolism or as a successful express the tension between tradition and modernity in Sámi architecture.10 The latter interpretation seems more appropriate, considering that contemporary Sámi architecture needs to be brought into the future. Arguing that Árdna is superficial would make Sáminess a thing of the past that can never evolve beyond nomadic vernacular architecture.
Figure 5. Jan Ole Andersen and Iver Jaks (Photograph: Elin Haugdal), The Sámi Cultural Pavilion, Ardna (right), 2004, Norway.
Figure 6. Joar Nango, Girjegumpi: Sámi Architectural Library, nomadic project, first exhibited 2018.
Figure 7. Gumpi, https://polarpedia.eu/en/gumpi/.
Architecture, colonialism, and capitalism are the central concerns of Joar Nango’s Girjegumpi (2018) (fig. 6), also known as the Sámi Architectural Library, a digital archive of Indigenous culture and a nomadic space stationed in Norway. Inspired by the self-built nomadic reindeer hut called the gumpi (fig. 7), Nango’s work helps define Sámi contemporaneity as one that, as curator Candice Hopkins explains, reflects on vernacular architecture and its possible uses in the future.11 It is not meant to be an institution; Nango rather emphasizes that it is an eclectic, undefined collection of knowledge and books.12 The archives featured in this digital space can help one understand Nango’s mission of Sámi Shelters. For example, Nango includes the essay Decolonization is Not a Metaphor (2012). Written by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, they argue that “decolonization is not a metonym for social justice.”13 Therefore, it could be tempting to label Nango’s work as decolonizing architecture. However, it seems that he is rather trying to make a place for Indigenous people in academic discourse on colonization:
“Liberal Arts education has historically excluded any attention to or analysis of settler colonialism. This […] makes Liberal Arts education complicit in the project of settler colonialism and, more so, has rendered the truer project of Liberal Arts education something like trying to make the settler indigenous to the land he occupies.”14
This mention of land being stolen from Indigenous peoples is particularly salient because architecture can be seen as a strategy to reclaim it. Furthermore, Nango’s collection has an interesting connection with music in Sámi culture. Indeed, Ande Somby, a lawyer, joiker and artist from the University of Tromsø, describes the joik, a form of song in Sámi music, as working with a basic set of rules but being flexible in improvisation, where differences can be seen in the details.15 Girjegumpi might be improvised and eclectic, but it contains tremendous knowledge that goes beyond capitalist notions of production rooted in systematic planning. The space becomes a language, resisting colonialism by encouraging linguistic and cultural sovereignty.16
Figure 8. Stein Halvorsen and Christian Sundby. Sámi Parliament Building, Karasjok, 2000.
Figure 9. Unidentified picture under “Giant Lávvu Syndrome,” https://gumpi.space/en.
Located in Karasjok and founded in 1989, Norway’s Sámi parliament building Sámediggi (fig. 8) is particularly interesting for Haugdal and Nango. Haugdal explains that the parliament symbolically connects sustainability and Sámi culture.17 However, it still pays attention to less conspicuous qualities of Sámi culture unlike the “Giant Lávvu Syndrome” buildings which reduce Indigenous architecture to form (fig. 9). Woodwork is used alongside white steel, glass, and concrete. The exterior cladding is made of Siberian larch, linking Sámi culture to nature and decay. Although the building is not temporary, the architects claimed that “it’s meant to decay. This is entirely in line with the Sámi’s own culture, which does not leave any physical traces.”18 This contradictory statement marks a new, postmodernist use of materials and vision of architecture as images, signs, and language.19
Nango is still critical of the building, but mostly about its function. Although no one has authority to give instructions to the Sámi parliament’s democratically elected representatives, Nango points out that there are no autonomous decisions made there.20 Moreover, the Sámi are not only present in Norway, but also in Sweden, Finland, and Russia, highlighting the problematic absence of a parliament that transcends colonial borders. This fictional parliament could potentially be nomadic: “based on that concept, the way you negotiate would change, would develop.”21 A core concept for Nango’s work is the sense of hierarchy present in architecture, a field often associated with masculinity and conservatism. Nango’s critique of the building dismantles the power associated with colonial architecture. Therefore, Nango’s problem with the parliament should not be interpreted as a rejection of its architectural composition, but rather of the concept of a “national Sámi parliament” itself.
Figure 11. Nils-Aslak Valkeapää Lásságammi, Skibotn, 2001.
The contemporary language of Sámi architecture is grounded in a critique of environmental degradation resulting from capitalist education. A prime example of this is the house of Sámi writer, musician, and artist Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (1943-2001), Lásságammi (2001) (fig. 10), located in Skibotn. The house, designed by Valkeapää and Eino Jokiken, links architecture to sound and embodies Sámi belief systems contained in vernacular architecture. It is now a residency for Indigenous artists and researchers. The form of the building recalls the lávvu, but the building is not temporary. However, it is still grounded in Sámi culture. Lásságammi is even built on the edge of Valkeapää’s reindeer herding district, and the circular plan accompanied by a vertical fireplace goes back to Sámi traditions.22 Looking out towards the mountains, sea, and forest, the windows make the visitor feel a close affinity with the land: The windows are made to let sound of nature in, instead of trying to repress it. This links it back to how people in the lávvu must have experienced the space and the nature surrounding it. Moreover, the house is built according to the rhythm of the seasons, an integral part of Sámi culture, as the windows let sound in and the walls isolate sound. The visitor is surrounded by a surround system immersing them in nature, even in the basement. The presence of bells and resonant material in the wood permits the space to be dominated by sound. Artist Elin Mar Oyen Vister explains how she interacted with the “acoustic architecture”: “One evening, I was dancing around listening to music…I just started touching everything!”23 The deep listening skills the Lásságammi triggers probably inspired Valkeapää’s Bird Symphony (Goase Dušše) (1994).24 Thus, contemporary Sámi architecture is not just to be understood through form. It is a way of life and a creative force intrinsically linked to nature.
The link between sound and architecture in Lásságammi challenges the effects of capitalist and colonial education that makes one lose touch with what our bodies are communicating.25 It also makes works like this house be forgotten in the art historical canon that Vister argues we need to “explode,” motivating her to pursue what she calls sound archaeology.26 Capitalism also separates Indigenous peoples from the land. Although some companies operating in Sápmi compensate the Sámi people, resources are still exploited: “in external colonialism, all things Native become recast as ‘natural resources.’”27;28 Since the 1800s, development in Sápmi was governed by hegemonic interests other than those required to ensure the Sámi people’s subsistence and development opportunities.29
Understanding Lásságammi can help one understand contemporary Sámi architecture but also contemporary struggles of climate change: “Global warming is changing the very basis of our subsistence dramatically. It is facilitating access to new areas for operations that threaten Mother Nature herself, and any compromise in connection with climate-friendly energy development will threaten the land used for Indigenous peoples’ traditional industries.”30 Formalist understandings of Sámi architecture fail to capture its ecological goal and further colonial occupation of the land.
Figure 11. Joar Nango, Sámi Shelters, exhibited at Knipsu, Bergen, 2010.
The importance of materials in contemporary Sámi architecture is purposefully avoided in Nango’s sweater project Sámi Shelters (fig. 11), pointing to the colonial and capitalist problems behind the “Giant Lávvu Syndrome.” If one looks closely, the sweaters represent lávvu structures that are made permanent. For example, the one in the middle seems to represent one made of concrete, which does not represent the philosophy of the duodji or the “material flow cycle.” This philosophy is rooted in the temporal dimension of handicraft, and the transformation of materials.31 Nango emphasizes he is interested in rethinking duodji in contemporary ways, linking his project back to contemporary architects and the emphasis they place on materials.32 He mentions how exploiting new materials is no longer sustainable, rooting his project in post-capitalism.33 The lávvu is taken out of context like many lávvu structures in the North. Therefore, the attention to materials I explained earlier seems to be absent.
The sweaters represent a space that is two dimensional, and the ten different shades of colour used on every sweater makes the installation feel simplistic. Unlike the Lásságammi, the lávvu structure is not made contemporary and nature is reduced to colour. It makes the conservative field of architecture a capitalistic possession: even the knitting patterns are given away as handouts. The absence of sound in the piece might point to the alienation Sámi people feel when encountering buildings that express the “Giant Lávvu Syndrome,” taking away the building from the land and using it for other purposes. Similarly, as scholar Lissa-Rávná Finbog remarks, art is a colonial category that establishes value.34 The sweaters that hang in the gallery, remind the viewer that value was taken away from Sámi people and that bringing vernacular architecture into contemporary context is the first step in eliminating stereotypes of tradition. Moreover, the hierarchy present in the art field, regarding craft as less than art and architecture, is challenged by Nango’s piece. As mentioned earlier, the duodji is a philosophy that is extremely complex and important for the Sámi. Reducing it to capitalist notions of value is thus a colonial practice.
To conclude, the contemporaneity of Sámi architecture is characterized by a particular use of materials that is based on nomadic vernacular architecture, but that is brought into the future by critiquing colonial notions of land rooted in capitalism. Nango’s Sámi Shelters reminds the viewer that architecture’s power transcends form—it is a worldview and, ultimately, a means of resistance against oppression.
Endnotes
Mimi Zeiger, “Interview: Joar Nango on Indigenous Architectures and Slippery Identities,” Pin-Up Magazine, last visited November 4, 2021, pinupmagazine.org/articles/interview-mimi-zeiger-joar-sami-architecture-joar nango#14.
“Interview: Joar Nango,” Pin-Up Magazine.
Elin Haugdal, “It’s Meant to Decay: Contemporary Sámi Architecture and the Rhetoric of Materials,” The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture 30 (2018), 809, doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904- 8_30.
Haugdal, “It’s Meant to Decay,” 810.
Haugdal, 810.
Haugdal, 809.
“Suffering Through the Education System: The Sami Boarding Schools,” University of Texas, laits.utexas.edu/sami/dieda/hist/suffer-edu.htm.
Haugdal, “It’s Meant to Decay,” 812.
Haugdal, 813.
Haugdal, 814.
Joar Nango and Ken Are Bongo, “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1 – On Materiality and Resource Economy,” Vimeo video, uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020, https://vimeo.com/430639511.
Evan Pavka, “Space in Itself is a Language: A Conversation with Joar Nango,” Azure, last visited November 4, 2021, azuremagazine.com/article/space-in-itself-is-a-language-a-conversation-with-joar-nango.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 21.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor,” 8.
Joar Nango and Ken Are Bongo, “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2 – On Nomadism and Flow,” Vimeo video, uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020, vimeo.com/430644437.
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2.”
Haugdal, “It’s Meant to Decay,” 820.
Haugdal, 805.
Haugdal, 806.
“A conversation between Joar Nango and Rebecca Lemire,” Girjegumpi, 2016, last visited Dec. 13, https://gumpi.space/en.
“A conversation between Joar Nango and Rebecca Lemire,” Girjegumpi.
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1.”
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1.”
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1.”
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1.”
“Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1.”
“Minerals and Mines in Sápmi: The Viewpoint of the Swedish Sami Parliament,” Sámediggi, 2014, last visited Dec. 13, sametinget.se.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor,” 4.
Egil Oli, “Indigenous Peoples Rights, Natural Environments and Climate Changes.” Conference Report 2008: Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples (2008): 10, munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/2994/report.pdf?sequence=1.
Egil Oli, “Indigenous Peoples Rights,” 11.
Namita Gupta Wiggers, “Duodji as part of philosophy and cosmology,” Norwegian Crafts, 2018, last visited November 4, 2021, norwegiancrafts.no/articles/duodji-as-part-of-philosophy-and-cosmology.
“Duodji,” Norwegian Crafts.
“Duodji,” Norwegian Crafts.
Joar Nango and Ken Are Bongo, “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 3 – On Decolonization and Architecture,” Vimeo video, uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020, vimeo.com/430661197.
Bibliography
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Girjegumpi, Joar Nango, last visited November 4, 2021, gumpi.space/en.
Haugdal, Elin. “It’s Meant to Decay: Contemporary Sámi Architecture and the Rhetoric of Materials.” The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture 30 (2018): 805-829. doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6904-8_30.
“Minerals and Mines in Sápmi: The Viewpoint of the Swedish Sami Parliament.” Sámediggi, 2014, last visited Dec. 13, sametinget.se.
Nango, Joar and Ken Are Bongo. “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 1 – On Materiality and Resource Economy.” Vimeo video, 34:05. Uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020. vimeo.com/430639511.
Nango, Joar and Ken Are Bongo. “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 2 – On Nomadism and Flow.” Vimeo video, 36:54. Uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020. vimeo.com/430644437.
Nango, Joar and Ken Are Bongo. “Post-Capitalist Architecture TV Part 3 – On Decolonization and Architecture,” Vimeo video, 40:23. Uploaded by Bergen Kunsthall, 2020. vimeo.com/430661197.
Oli, Egil. “Indigenous Peoples Rights, Natural Environments and Climate Changes.” Conference Report 2008: Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples (2008): 10-17. munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/2994/report.pdf?sequence=1.
Pavka, Evan. “Space in Itself is a Language: A Conversation with Joar Nango.” Azure, last visited November 4, 2021, azuremagazine.com/article/space-in-itself-is-a-language a-conversation-with-joar-nango.
“Suffering Through the Education System: The Sami Boarding Schools.” University of Texas, unknown publication date, last visited Dec. 13, laits.utexas.edu/sami/dieda/hist/suffer-edu.htm.
Tuck, Eve and K. Wayne. “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1-40.
Wiggers, Namita Gupta. “Duodji as part of philosophy and cosmology.” Norwegian Crafts, 2018, last visited November 4, 2021, norwegiancrafts.no/articles/duodji-as-part-of philosophy-and-cosmology.
Zeiger, Mimi. “Interview: Joar Nango on Indigenous Architectures and Slippery Identities.” Pin Up Magazine, last visited November 4, 2021, pinupmagazine.org/articles/interview-mimi zeiger-joar-sami-architecture-joar-nango#14.