The Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum 2014–2020: Decolonisation in Practice

Abstract

National art museums are integral to a nation’s cultural landscape, acting as both a witness to the past, and a source of inspiration going forward. Yet the boundaries of Indigenous cultural regions don’t necessarily coincide with officially recognised national borders. Northern Norway is both a part of Norway, as well as a part of Sápmi, yet Sámi representation in national Norwegian cultural institutions has been demonstrably poor. In 2017, however, the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Northern Norwegian Art Museum; NNKM) addressed this issue, reinventing itself as the Sámi Dáiddamuseax to point at what was lacking, but also as a first step in its own process towards decolonisation, deinstitutionalisation, and indigenisation. Using the Dáiddamuseax project as a turning point, this thesis takes a cultural analysis approach grounded in an Indigenous methodologies framework to reflect upon the NNKM’s development up to early 2020 to demonstrate how the museum used its position and resources to address its own colonial status as a museum while striving to become a better ally to the Sámi. Using case studies and interviews, this research looks at programming choices and considerations in how it presented itself, as well as at the relationships it fostered over this period, to show that the NNKM’s interest in decolonisation were more than superficial. Rather, the organisation was not only committed to changing itself, but also to inspire a decolonial shift in both the local Tromsø and broader Norwegian cultural communities. This thesis ends by considering the fragility and difficulty of the process of decolonisation, however, particularly for an organisation that operates within the confines of a much larger institutional framework – in this case, national government bodies. However, while every decolonial process is different and contextual, the NNKM’s progress nonetheless highlights ways in which other cultural institutions could consider when attempting their own process of decolonisation and indigenisation.