The Sun, our father – The Earth, our mother

            With the release of Eanni, eannázan (The Earth, My Mother) in 2001, Áillohaš ends his almost thirty-year-long artistic oeuvre with artists books. Beaivvi, áhcázan (The Sun, My Father) from 1988, is a milestone of a book and marks an awareness of a greater Sámi community. While Eanni, eannázan spreads outward into the world and the world’s reality, Beaivvi, áhcázan moves within a smaller, more intimate Sámi circle. The earlier book, with images and poems, is more akin to of a story of origins, of the lives of foremothers and fathers, and of a common Sámi landscape.

            Beaivvi, áhcázan consists of a staging of archival material, alongside artistic treatments of photographs found in collections around the Nordic countries, the USA and Europe. The scope of the work is a testament to the vigorous research and the countless negotiations doubtless required for the use the material. The images are widespread in their geographical origins and cover the entirety of the Sámi region: from Peäccam and Kola Peninsula in the east, to Viesterála in the west, from Finnmárku in the north to Trööndelage and Herjedaelie in the south. There is no shortage of problematic photographs, such as the prisoner photos from Oslo after the Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino uprising of 1852, Sámis on display in Germany and France, images of forcibly displaced Sámis in Sweden, and the typical post-card compositions that can be found at the souvenir kiosks. Even Sámi participation in polar expeditions and reindeer husbandry projects in the USA have been given a place in Beaivvi, áhcázan. The composite narrative not only shows pictures of a tough way of life – survival, Sámi life, friendship and fate – but also deals with the hurt and pain of having the photos taken in the first place. In this way, the book is emancipating contemporary art.

            The reindeer are a constant theme throughout the book, directly as a form of livelihood, or as a symbol of power, and also as mythical creatures. Reindeer provide meat, milk, skins, bones, innards, and antlers, and can also be harnessed for transportation. With its alpine habitat, appearance, and movement through the landscape, the reindeer has been an icon of northern survival for thousands of years. In Beaivvi, áhcázan, Áillohaš allows the reindeer to form the poetic cycle through the use of typography. Like a stream of animals, the reindeer moves soundly through the text. We hear the reindeer and birds, but also the voices of our forefathers and mothers calling us across a timeless, mythical origin, a dream time, a drum time.

            It can be stated that Beaivvi, áhcázan is a Sámi national epic, with the book’s pathos and emphasis on the past, origins, unity, pride, and heroism. The Sámi people are indeed children of the Sun, but what I find truly epic about Beaivvi, áhcázan is the radiance of the individual human being – as a part of nature. Áillohaš incorporates a circular perspective that may serve to counteract the static, the final, the original. It is an ecology, an antidote to the ethnocentrism that lurks in any widespread community project. The book ends where it begins, in physical history, in a landscape, with sieidi, birth, death, drums, stones, human being.