How To Juggle Reindeer Horns – A Short Film About Young Sámi Artists Defies Stereotypes
Bálggis (A Path) is a portrait of three young Sámi artists representing marginal art forms. The short documentary features a circus artist, a graffiti artist, and a comic artist who all live nowadays in the big cities of Southern Finland.
Manipulating reindeer horns looks dangerous. Aleksi Niittyvuopio juggles different objects and explores their natural movement. Reindeer horns are a challenge, but the goal is to have his own solo performance.
“My own path as an artist has some goals, but along that path you notice every now and then that there is a stream or something else that you want to go and see. The goals may change, and it’s also nice to go and see something a little unfamiliar,” Aleksi Niittyvuopio, who lives in Tampere, says about his artistic work. He has close ties to the North through his grandfather.
Sámi activism plays an important role in Sami Hustler‘s art. He does this through graffiti in urban Helsinki, also known as the largest Sámi village in Finland. The contrast with the wilderness of the North is huge, but you have to get there regularly to recharge your batteries. In the film, the graffiti artist appears in disguise.
For Sunna Kitti, a cartoonist who values a strong connection to her ancestral lands in the land of the Sámi, maintaining close ties to the Sámi culture and the landscapes of Lapland is of the utmost importance. Kitti’s imagination is sparked by these surroundings and her fantasy stories take flight whenever she asks herself “What if?”.
The artists in the film have in common, on the one hand, their Sámi identity, and on the other, a strong embrace of popular, global means of expression in contemporary culture. The Sámi origins are no longer concealed, as they were a few decades ago, but neither does it characterise all their work. The young artists show that Sámi culture is strongly linked to today’s artistic scene.
“Sámi culture is one that lives in time and is based on a strong continuum. I’ve followed the work of Aleksi, Sámi Hustler and Sunna, and their cultural heritage naturally goes hand in hand with today’s artistry and modern expertise,” says the film’s director Auri Ahola, who also officially represents Sámi culture and art in the Finnish arts administration system.
The film was produced by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. Watch it on YouTube. The subtitles are available in English – go to YouTube settings to change if needed.
Direction: Auri Ahola
Photography: Sakari Maliniemi, Janne Airaksinen
Sound: Pekka Aikio, Janne Airaksinen
This article was originally published in the Finnish Dance in Focus 2023 issue and later on Circus Dance Finland.
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