Communication between duodji and museum :Exhibiting duodji in the first Siida exhibition

• Main Author: Aikio, Áile
• Other Authors: Guttorm, Gunvor, Henriksen, Marit Breie, Westman Kuhmunen, Anna, Linkola-Aikio, Inker-Anni
• Format: Book Part
• Language: Northern Sami
• Published: Sámi allaskuvla 2022
• Subjects: saamentutkimus; kulttuuriperintö; duodji; museot; /dk/atira/pure/person/fieldofscience2010/6/16; Other humanities; /dk/atira/pure/person/fieldofscience2010/6/15; History and archaeology; /dk/atira/pure/person/fieldofscience2010/5/20/3; Other social sciences; Arctic
• Online Access: https://research.ulapland.fi/fi/publications/44d768e8-a1ac-431c-be0c-7c6f9ee0eb44; https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3046569

In this paper I am interested in decolonization processes of museum exhibition practices and how research on indigenous cultural heritage in museum can improve possibilities for collaboration and dialogue between museums and the indigenous peoples. Museum is often understood to be neutral and unpolitical, though – as Indigenous peoples have noted through decades – it is a colonial institute, that is based on European worldview, values and understanding what is cultural heritage. This again weakens the museum’s ability to protect the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples on an equal footing with that of the majority population. In my study I present a case study on how duodji has been presented in the first main exhibition of the Sámi museum Siida. By combining the exhibiting practices of the art world with traditions of ethnographic museums the Siida exhibition created a new way of presenting duodji and Sáminess in a museum exhibition. My study shows how different museum categories, as art or ethnography, as well as different museum traditions to exhibit them are ontologically and epistemically violent towards duodji as Sámi understand it. However, this should not be seen as a reason to cease presenting duodji in museum exhibitions, but understand exhibiting duodji to be a possibility to challenge the colonial hierarchical classification of art, craft, and design. To adapt museum practices to meet the needs and understandings of duodji is an opportunity to decolonize exhibition work and exhibiting practices and to reconstruct Sámi museology. Although my research deals with only one Sámi museum, the knowledge it provides can be used more widely to discuss what could be the Sámi ways to do heritage work and how memory organizations created according to the Western model, such as museums and archives, could better meet Sámi values in the worldview and needs.