Exhibition at OCA Oslo explores Sámi art and activism through the Áltá-Guovdageino Action

Let the River Flow, an exhibition at Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) in Oslo from 12 April to 3 June 2018, presents over 20 artists connected to the Sámi indigenous community and the Áltá-Guovdageino Action, a protest from 1978 to 1982 against damming the Áltá river in northern Norway. The show, resulting from three years of research by OCA, includes works by Keviselie (Hans Ragnar Mathisen), whose lithograph 1852 (1981) references an 1852 uprising, and features artists like Iver Jåks, Aage Gaup, Britta Marakatt-Labba, and Trygve Lund Guttormsen, many of whom were part of the Sámi Artist Group formed in 1978. The exhibition layout uses birchwood modules suspended from the ceiling, echoing duodji (Sámi craft), and argues for artmaking integrated with social and spiritual life. A wall archive displays ephemera from the Áltá protest, highlighting the small activist community versus large-scale dam construction. Videos by Mai-Lis Eira and Elle Márjá Eira of the Dáidadállu collective, such as 6 February 1981 (2018) and Don’t Fuck With Me (2018), revisit the 1979 hunger strike outside the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo, reflecting on ongoing struggles despite the establishment of a Sámi parliament. The exhibition underscores resistance to Norwegianisation policies that lasted into the 1980s, fostering Sámi solidarity across Sápmi, which spans Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.