CATNOSAT - THE SAMI PAVILION

For the first time Sami artists will present their art and worldvies at the Biennale Arte in Venice, 2022, as a sovereign call representing Sapmi, (Sami homeland that spans Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula). The Sami Pavilion is a Catnosat (= conne
ctions, networks) project that revolves around three key elements: trans-generational relations, holistic Sami knowledge, and learning and Sami spiritual perspectives. This book serves as a project in its own right, to provide further reflections on
Sami art and knowledge, considering Sami notions of non-linear time and the centrality of story-telling, sound and the spoken word. The core of Catnosat features the artworks of The Sami Pavillion''s artists Pauliina Feodoroff, Maret Anne Sara and A
nders Sunna. Around this are two sections, neither beginnings nor ends. In one, we find an experimental short play and poems, as well as stories bringing political, and Sami spiritual and philosophical perspectives. The other section includes a dialo
gue with the artists; an essay highlighting the centrality and span of Sami knowledge creation across the ages, and a glossary of Sami words pivotal to Sami ways of being, doing, seeing and thinking, also highlighting the Sami philosophical relations
hip to their language. The book is an exercise in Samification that highlights the importance of Indigenous holidstic perspectives today, and that centres Sami Indigenous wisdom in all fields of art and living. Following the Sami custom of learning
from elders of the community, the artists received guidance of the following Sami elders: Pauliina Feodoroff by Sami educator and professor emerita Asta M. Balto; Maret Anne Sara by reindeer herder and Sami knowledge bearer Karen E. M. Utsi; and Ande
rs Sunna by Sami professor of law and juoigi (practitioner of joik, the Sami musical practice) Ande Somby.