Liisa-Ravna Finbog

I`m an Indigenous scholar and duojár from Oslo, Vaapste, and Skánit on the Norwegian side of the border.

As a long-time practitioner of duodji [Sámi practices of aesthetics and storytelling], in my PhD in museology I combined my practice with an Indigenous research focus which looked into duodji as a Sámi system of knowledge; the devastating effect of the colonial epistemicide on the practice of duodji; how Sámi communities today work to re-remember practices within duodji and in the process negotiate Sámi identities; and lastly, how museums with their vast collections of Sámi heritage objects play into these processes.

Extending from this research, in 2019 I curated the seminar ‘Dåajmijes Vuekie – the material expressions of Sámi aesthetics’, which was convened during the Sámi Art Festival of that year. 

The same year I was also the curator of a seminar convened jointly by Office for Contemporary Art – Norway (OCA) and Norwegian Crafts (NC) relating to the United Nations International year of Indigenous Languages, titled ‘Båassjoeraejken Tjïrr – Workshops and conversations on Indigenous languages, aesthetic practices and landscapes’.

Currently I`m based here in Tampere, doing post-doc research in connection with ‘Mediated Arctic Geographies’, a project that aims to look at how Arctic geospheres are aesthetically shaped and mediated to become vehicles of environmental, [geo]political and social concerns. My specific focus is on the relation between Indigenous aesthetics in the Arctic and land.

This work also informs my work as a co-curator for the Sámi Pavilion at the upcomin Venice Biennale in April, 2022.

I`m also a collaborator on the research project ‘The Space Between Us’ that strengthens intellectual relationships among nations with shared colonial histories in the three areas of Canada, Circumpolar and Pacific connecting to digital and new media technology in the future.

I`m also a session leader in the upcoming Momus Emerging Critics Residency to help guide emerging critical writers develop texts that are informed by the breadth of global Indigenous art criticism, cultural protocols, and citational practices.

My written works include contributions to collective works such as ‘Research Journeys In/To Multiple Ways of Knowing (2019), articles in Nordic Museology (2015) and in the digital platform “Action Stories” (2021), as well as several upcoming works, including my first book, “It Speaks to You – Making kin through people, stories, and duodji in Sámi Museums” (2022).