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DOI: 10.15862/08KLSK126 (https://doi.org/10.15862/08KLSK126)

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Soloviova A.N. [Ethnographic impulse in the Arctic contemporary art: the case of Scandinavia and the North America] World of Science. Series: Sociology, Philology, Cultural Studies, 2026, Vol. 17, No. 1. Available at: https://sfk-mn.ru/PDF/08KLSK126.pdf (in Russian). DOI: 10.15862/08KLSK126

Ethnographic impulse in the Arctic contemporary art: the case of Scandinavia and the North America

Soloviova Anna Nikolaevna
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Arkhangelsk, Russia
E-mail: annasolov@mail.ru
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3666-8590
RSCI: https://elibrary.ru/author_profile.asp?id=154303

Abstract. The article overviews the multidisciplinary art practices of the XXI century, there authors and curators use the ethnographic resources of the circumpolar region (crafts, folklore, historic archives and museum collections) to reinterpret folk traditions in decolonial and postindustrial context of the «contemporaneity». The analysis covers the art projects from Scandinavia and the North America of 2010–2020s., which were realized by the Arctic indigenous artists and included performative exhibitions, installations, artistic research and community art activities. The art-works of Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Alaska, USA) and Outi Pieski (Finland) demonstrate how the contemporary artists apply to ethnographic materials the methods of reappropriation, hybridization, détourage and ready-made. The theories of contemporary art and ethnology form the following conceptual frames for the dialog between artists and anthropologists: understanding of the art as anthropological practice in the multidisciplinary field of cultural knowledge; the formation of the «Other» image, placed outside the modernity chronotope; the critique of the power relations, that produce art and research in colonial conditions. The contemporary artists use the material objects and the symbolic systems of the Arctic to articulate the ideas of «handmade», «site-specific», «cultural reconstruction» and «sustainable development» in the context of the art and the anthropology. The handmade artefacts and the visual texts, created by the artists, reconfigure the stereotypes of the Arctic Aboriginal groups, which circulate in the global media, and reflect the transformation of the groups’ connections to the ancestors’ land and culture.

Keywords: contemporary art; ethnography; Arctic; indigenous peoples; art research; XXI century

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