Ingunn Utsi

Homage II

Ingunn Utsi made her first ‘Gudni’ or ‘Tribute’ work in 1995 in the Ássebákti forest of Karasjok. Her new ‘Gudni II’ or ‘Tribute II,’ which she finished for the biennale, resembles a poem whose lines link Ii and Karasjok. “Two pines stand in a forest far from each other, still connected.” Gudni II is like a family tree whose branches stretch through distance and over generations.

Ingunn Utsi: Homage II. 2016. Environmental Art Park Ii. Photo: Antti J.Leinonen.

The surface of a tree is nude and smooth as the skin of a human being. The artist’s hands have shaped its form, replacing bark with lines and ornamental figures. From its naked trunk emerge stories in a universal language. Utsi has looked for the invisible behind the visible. The tree is her tribute to her ancestors and to the earth in which trees grow and which helps human beings to survive.

Utsi (b. 1948) lives and works in Finnmark, Norway. She studied at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts (KIT) and works as a sculptor, painter and drawer. In her sculptures, she combines various materials, such as wood, plastic, stone and metal. She describes her way of working with wood: “When I am working with three-dimensional wooden objects, I almost never make any sketches. I work directly with the material and let it talk to my mind, my eyes and hands. In many ways, I can ‘see’ the result by letting the material be my guide, but there are surprises or demands in the wood itself, and I have to take that into consideration. While shaping the material, it grows and becomes my piece of art.”

Gallery

See also

Outi Pieski

Forewalkers is based on the Sámi philosophy of the agreeable life (soabala eallin): preserving, protecting and supporting diversity in both nature and humans. Jenni Laiti and Outi Pieski have made their own borderless fence from walking sticks. In Sápmi, walking sticks traditionally have been used to mark reindeer calves in the bare mountains. Thus, this artwork references praxis which decolonises Sámis’ land by defining its borders. This piece also pays homage to the Sámi ancestors, who wandered before the artists and are their forewalkers. Their legacy is alive in Sámi culture today.

Joar Nango

Joar Nango’s piece represents a different approach to the framework of an environmental-art biennale as it is process based and investigates the tradition of burning tar. At the biennale, traces and documentation of the process, conducted during the preparative workshop in June, can be seen.

Jenni Laiti

Forewalkers is based on the Sámi philosophy of the agreeable life (soabala eallin): preserving, protecting and supporting diversity in both nature and humans. Jenni Laiti and Outi Pieski have made their own borderless fence from walking sticks. In Sápmi, walking sticks traditionally have been used to mark reindeer calves in the bare mountains. Thus, this artwork references praxis which decolonises Sámis’ land by defining its borders. This piece also pays homage to the Sámi ancestors, who wandered before the artists and are their forewalkers. Their legacy is alive in Sámi culture today.

Carola Grahn

Carola Grahn’s contribution to the Ii biennale is a series consisting of three wood signs with hand-carved sentences positioned in relation to the landscape. The blunt sentences bring to mind human relations.

Aage Gaup

In the front of the park, a structure rises from the ground. The contours of a person can be seen in the forest, almost guarding the site. Aage Gaup’s piece is made from the trunks of pine trees, carved into a sculpture. From the material, he awakens vuovdeolmmo.

Tomas Colbengtson

Tomas Colbengtson’s pieces for this biennale are two silkscreen portraits of Sámi people printed on polycarbonate glass. The portraits are placed in nature, with a river as their backdrop. We can see the faces of two women, visualized through patterns taken from old carvings on reindeer antlers. The river passes behind their faces, symbolising the years that have passed and the culture that has vanished.

Matti Aikio

Matti Aikio’s sound installation tells about the present-day situation of the Sámi people in Finland. It turns upside down the Sámi storytelling tradition by presenting a story of the future.