Marét Ánne Sara

February 11, 2022

Sámi artist, activist, and writer Máret Ánne Sara is from a reindeer-herding family in Kautokeino, a village in northern Norway. 

In 2017, her large-scale installation Pile o’Sápmi gained critical acclaim at the exhibition Documenta 14. Since then, Máret Ánne Sara continues to explore the rights of reindeer-herding families in her artwork by repurposing the original reindeer skulls into new work, such as Wear the downs as your ups, couse this dance will twist you inside out. This work is a protest and symbol of the Norwegian government’s forced slaughter of reindeer belonging to Indigenous Sámi herders in Finnmark County. The reindeer skulls can also be seen as a reference to the photographs of buffalo skulls that were taken in North America in the 19th century where the slaughter of the buffalo was a way of taking control of the indigenous population’s territory. Sara’s art does not just relate the horrors of colonial history, but the works are simultaneously built on personal and contemporary experiences.

 Marét Ánne Sara, (Norway, born 1983),  Wear your down as your ups, couse this dance will twist you inside out , 2021. Reindeer heads decorated with Guovdageaidnu gákti (traditional Sámi dress from the artist’s area), poles: 35 7/16 x 15 3/4 inches; heads: approx. 9 27/32 x 5 29/32 inches, each. Courtesy of the artist. © Marét Ánne Sara. Photo by Karl Alfred Larsen 
Marét Ánne Sara, (Norway, born 1983), Wear your down as your ups, couse this dance will twist you inside out , 2021. Reindeer heads decorated with Guovdageaidnu gákti (traditional Sámi dress from the artist’s area), poles: 35 7/16 x 15 3/4 inches; heads: approx. 9 27/32 x 5 29/32 inches, each. Courtesy of the artist. © Marét Ánne Sara. Photo by Karl Alfred Larsen 
 Marét Ánne Sara, (Norway, born 1983),  Wear your down as your ups, couse this dance will twist you inside out , 2021. Reindeer heads decorated with Guovdageaidnu gákti (traditional Sámi dress from the artist’s area), poles: 35 7/16 x 15 3/4 inches; heads: approx. 9 27/32 x 5 29/32 inches, each. Courtesy of the artist. © Marét Ánne Sara. Photo by Karl Alfred Larsen
Marét Ánne Sara, (Norway, born 1983), Wear your down as your ups, couse this dance will twist you inside out , 2021. Reindeer heads decorated with Guovdageaidnu gákti (traditional Sámi dress from the artist’s area), poles: 35 7/16 x 15 3/4 inches; heads: approx. 9 27/32 x 5 29/32 inches, each. Courtesy of the artist. © Marét Ánne Sara. Photo by Karl Alfred Larsen

*Please note the original work is not on view in the PMA’s presentation of the North Atlantic Triennial.


Explore more artworks from North Atlantic Triennial

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