Ortsbezogene Kunst: Statement by Suvi West

In her lecture Suvi West presents Sámi/Indigenous cinema and in which way its storytelling methods differ from the western storytelling values. She will elaborate how to use those values, methods and ethics in all storytelling and in creative works.
Sámi people are Indigenous people living in the North part of Finland, Sweden, Norway and parts of Russia. Like other colonized Indigenous people, Sámi people have been objectified, exoticized and even sexualized for hundreds of years by western storytellers. For the past decades Sámi´s have started to tell their own stories with their own gaze. What does it mean now for those who want to tell stories or use elements from Indigenous cultures but are not indigenous themselves? Where is the line between inspiration, collaboration and cultural appropriation? And what could the rest of the world learn from Indigenous storytellers?

Suvi West is a multiple award-winning Sámi filmmaker and storyteller living in her Sámi community in the Arctic between the border of Finland and Norway. The questions of storytelling methods, ethics and decolonization are her favorite topics.
The lecture is part of Suvi West’s course on Sámi Storytelling within the Department of Site-Specific Art this winter term.