Curating in the spirit of ČSV: Elle Márjá Eira on Elle-Hánsa’s 50th anniversary exhibition
Interview with Elle Márjá Eira
The multidisciplinary artist Elle Márjá Eira grew up looking at the revolutionary maps of Elle-Hánsa / Hans Ragnar Mathisen. Today she is thrilled to be part of the curatorial team behind the celebrated artist’s 50th anniversary exhibition. Here Eira talks about the significance of Elle-Hánsa’s work and her approach to curating.
Text by Marion Bouvier
Most people in Sápmi know Elle Márjá Eira as an artist, musician, yoiker, filmmaker and film producer. She recently directed the Netflix-acclaimed film Stolen (2024), the episode Elva skal leve from the much-praised Norwegian series Power Play; she released music both for the soundtrack of The 12th man (2017), and with John Paul Jones and Lucy Parnell with their band Snoweye. She was also part of the Sámi Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale with her 360° film Eallu – Girdnu / Reindeer Corral (2022).
She is now adding a new chapter to her prolific artistic career: curator. Together with curator Leif Magne Tangen she is co-curating the anniversary exhibition of Elle-Hánsa / Hans Ragnar Mathisen which will open on April 16 in Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino). The exhibition is produced by the Sámi Artist Network Dáiddadállu and will showcase 50 artworks that represent 50 years of Elle-Hánsa’s artistic career.
In many ways, this seems to have been destined to take place. Both are devoted to their respective artistic visions, very close to nature, intensely stubborn, vastly sensitive, quietly spiritual, and both have carved their own paths to redefine what Sámi art means.
The long way to reclaiming Sámi narratives
In the 1970s, Elle-Hánsa was a young Sámi artist fighting with a few of his peers to find a place for contemporary Sámi art on the Norwegian scene. He was part of a bunch of artists-activists who had very little, apart from their own strong will and their astonishing artworks, and who were fighting for Sámi rights against an oppressive system that had left much trauma in bodies and minds. At the time, the destructive Norwegianization process that had worked to systematically erase much of the visibility of the Sámi language and culture had taken a big toll on Sámi identity and traditional use of land. Then, the Norwegian government decided to build a dam in Alta, a project which galvanized opposition from both Sámi and environmental activists, and which led to protests often considered to be among the most significant for the Indigenous sustainability movement in Norway.
Building up on this energy, Elle-Hánsa and seven other artists founded the Mázejoavku, a Sámi artist collective active from 1978 to 1983, which strongly advocated for Sámi artists and led to the creation of the SDS (Sámi Artists’ Association) in 1979. The collective was composed of Elle-Hánsa, Aage Gaup, Trygve Lund Guttormsen, Josef Halse, Berit Marit Hætta, Rannveig Persen, Britta Marakatt-Labba, and Synnøve Persen. They were based in Máze (hence their name), a small village of around 200 souls, 60 km north of Guovdageaidnu, and which had initially been scheduled to be flooded for the construction of the Alta dam.
Elle Márjá Eira grew up in the 1980s looking at one of Elle-Hánsa’s revolutionary maps, which was hanging in the Eiras’ kitchen. She spent the first part of her childhood in Máze, the same village where Elle-Hánsa had been based. Despite her upbringing in a Sámi majority area, Eira also inherited the reality of the colonization that had left many Sámi people without access to their own language, land, and spiritual beliefs, and that had tried to strip them of their identity and pride. But anyone who has met Eira and her family can be a witness that pride and dignity is not something that could be taken from them. Her father, a reindeer herder, and her mother, a duojar, encouraged her both to learn the art of reindeer husbandry and to follow her creative path. Eira grew up speaking Sámi as her first language, while Elle-Hánsa had to relearn it as an adult.
After graduating in Alta, Eira worked different jobs in communication and culture, and then worked at NRK TV where she amongst others hosted a program for children. Yet, she had ambitions to make her own films and music and ended up producing and directing her first short film, Guođohit, in 2013. The short documentary incorporates topics that weave a red thread through her own artistry: yoiking, reindeer herding, her family’s values and traditions, and her intense connection to nature and to Finnmark. She then directed the short film Iđitsilba (2015), which addresses the historical attacks against Sámi culture by the church, and specifically the burning of the ládjogahpir, or «horn hat», a traditional headgear worn by women. It shows how priests were sent – to what is now northern Norway – to spread the gospel and to participate in the colonization effort, and how they were forcing women to burn their ládjogahpir, as the church decreed that the devil was dwelling in it. In that film, Eira’s deep connection to her Sámi heritage came forth, as well as her passion for understanding centuries of oppression to reclaim Sámi narratives.
Around 2017, Eira met Elle-Hánsa for the first time. She had seen his artworks in multiple exhibitions by then and was familiar with his major contribution to Sámi contemporary art and to the Mázejoavku. The two stayed loosely in touch, until around four years ago, when Eira started to film a documentary about the artist. Since then, Eira has been regularly visiting and filming Elle-Hánsa, so when the latter reached out to the artist network Dáiddadállu to mark the 50th anniversary of his first solo exhibition in Guovdageaidnu during Easter 1975, the artist collective –which is itself inspired by the legacy of the Mázejoavku– immediately reached out to Eira to ask her to curate the exhibition.
Eira in turn asked Leif Magne Tangen to collaborate as co-curator, as she saw the value of his knowledge and experience. Involving Tangen has been a good choice, according to Eira, who sees their styles as complementary and who describes their work process as dynamic and rewarding.
Eira says the following about this new challenge as a curator:
– It means incredibly much to me to be part of celebrating Elle-Hánsa and his artistic journey. I also believe it means a lot to Sápmi. Many people may not know that he is the one who created the Sápmi map, in addition to numerous other significant artworks. His work has been important not only for all of Sápmi but also for Sámi art history. This exhibition provides an important opportunity to highlight his significance.
Elle-Hánsa has also been involved in selecting works for the exhibition, and Eira describes having had many insightful conversations with the artist along the way.
– My own approach to curating is organic and somewhat improvisational, which I see as an extension of the nomadic mindset in reindeer herding. I notice that both Elle-Hánsa and I have an improvisational approach. It’s about adapting to the situation, the climate and weather, solving challenges along the way, and thinking collectively—just as we do in reindeer herding.
Holistic approach to curating
The exhibition reflects the diversity of Elle-Hánsa’s art practice: although he became most well-known for his maps, the artist has been prolific in printmaking, watercolor paintings, as well as making books and notebooks. A few years ago, Elle-Hánsa donated more than 12 000 items from his private collection to Árran julevsámi guovdasj, the Lule Sámi Center, from which some of the artworks now exhibited are on loan. The sheer volume of artworks he produced is emblematic of his indefectible curiosity and unending dedication to his art. He also traveled extensively as a young artist, meeting other Indigenous peoples, sketching, and journaling about the people and places he met, and lived in Taiwan for several years.
In recent years, the now almost 80-year-old artist has enjoyed a greater deal of attention, and has exhibited in many places, including a major retrospective at the Tromsø Kunstforening in 2021 (curated by Gry Spein and Leif Magne Tangen). But this exhibition, in Guovdageaidnu –in the heart of Sámi territory, with Eira as a curator, is a bit like bringing him home to the home he never had. In addition, Eira also brings her artistic and Sámi sensitivity to the exhibition, taking in the relevance of Elle-Hánsa’s art, not only historically, but also for today and for the future. She sees the artist’s contribution to Sámi art history as fundamental, and hopes that the exhibition will bring a deeper understanding of his art to the audience, amongst both the older and younger generations. There is one work she’s especially looking forward to unveiling to the public: the original map of Sápmi, which very few people have actually seen in its original form.
Further, she has been particularly attentive to highlighting that Elle-Hánsa has always created «activist art that engages and challenges.» She points out how his childhood, spent without his biological family and marked by years at the tuberculosis hospital in Tromsø where he was subjected to abuse, and the rest of his eventful life, are all tied into his art.
– This is an important part of his story and artistic expression, and the exhibition provides space for reflection on both his personal journey and his significance for Sámi art and culture.
Contrary to non-Indigenous curators, Eira approaches the curating process with that Sámi understanding of time and ancestry as non-linear, but rather circular and ever-present. She has a lot of respect for her predecessors, and deeply values their contributions. At the same time, she is also very aware that the renewed interest in Indigenous arts has sometimes been fetishized as something belonging to the past or to rigid craft forms. She emphasizes that Indigenous art should be recognized as dynamic, continuously evolving, diverse, a living practice where artists have access to new techniques and themes and to a broad range of expressions.
– I believe it is crucial that we take part in defining how Sámi art is curated and presented. Institutions need to understand that it is not always enough to simply exhibit Sámi art—they must also collaborate with Sámi curators, critics, and decision-makers as part of the art field.
Although Eira doesn’t like to dwell on it, she has encountered her share of adversity, discrimination and people underestimating her. And like Elle-Hánsa, she has also shown great resilience and has been passionate about promoting Sámi art.
– I am approaching this exhibition with full ČSV spirit!, she summarizes.
ČSV is most commonly associated to the phrase Čájet Sámi Vuoiŋŋa! (Show Sámi Spirit), and is a symbol of Sámi identity and activism, which saw the light in the 1970s around the Máze protests, and Elle-Hánsa was the one who drew the ČSV logo.
The two of them also have their love for nature in common. When I interviewed him in 2022 for Hakapik, Elle-Hánsa spoke lovingly of Sálašoaivi / Tromsdalstinden, the mountain that looks over Tromsø. He devotedly goes to feed ducks and other birds everywhere he can, and meticulously saves, reuses and upcycles every possible material. Eira also feels home in Guovdageaidnu, close to the nature she knows so well, eating reindeer meat and making her own sourdough bread. And whenever she is traveling around the globe for her film and art projects, she ultimately seeks the peace and space to recharge in her home environment of Sápmi.
– Lately, I have been writing a lot and seeking out silence. Being home allows me to take a step back. I have also been more conscious of focusing on projects that are closest to my heart and being more present in the moment.
ELLE-HÁNSA HANS RAGNAR MATHISEN - HALF A CENTURY ARTIST: 50 years – 50 artpieces, is open from April 16 until june 28, 2025. It is produced by Dáiddadállu – Guovdageiannu gilisilju and curated by Elle Márjá Eira and Leif Magne Tangen. The main exhibition will be at Guovdageaidnu gilišillju /Kautokeino bygdetun with parts of it located in Sámi Našunálateáhter/Det Samiske Nasjonalteatret - Beaivváš, Sámi allaskuvla / Sámi University of Applied Sciences og Duodjeinstituhtta.
