Colonial contexts

Project is launched to study the Sámi collection at the Museum of European Cultures Berlin

From De­cem­ber 2022, the Mu­se­um of Eu­ro­pean Cul­tures (MEK) Berlin will be­gin in­ves­ti­gat­ing and pro­cess­ing the Sá­mi col­lec­tion to­geth­er with Sá­mi re­searchers, artists and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives as part of a prove­nance re­search project fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.

The mu­se­um hous­es one of the most im­por­tant Sá­mi col­lec­tions out­side North­ern Eu­rope. Most of the hold­ings were col­lect­ed at the end of the 19th and the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry. The in­dige­nous Sá­mi com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­er this pe­ri­od as the peak of an in­ner-Eu­ro­pean colo­nial­ism in which they were op­pressed by ma­jor­i­ty so­ci­eties in the north­ern re­gions of Nor­way, Fin­land and Swe­den as well as on the Ko­la Penin­su­la in Rus­sia.
By record­ing ob­ject and ac­tor da­ta and es­tab­lish­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al net­work, the project aims to set an ex­am­ple for fur­ther prove­nance re­search in Ger­man, Eu­ro­pean and world­wide col­lec­tions with Sá­mi hold­ings.
To the mu­se­um