Texts about the paintings

Chapter 1

The 1971 Reindeer Husbandry Act is to be implemented and a meeting between the Sunna family and the County Administrative Board takes place at the community day centre in Pajala. The family considers it unreasonable that they should be expected to take care of the landowners’ reindeer, so-called non-Sámi reindeer, without compensation. Is this really the way the law is to be interpreted?

Behind closed doors lie hidden agendas and corrupted power relations. At the back, to the right, is the devil himself. The hellish red walls are papered with the silhouette of the County Administrative Board’s emblem.

– As concession holders we had legal rights, while at the same time important decisions were being made without us. The owners of the non-Sámi reindeer were allowed to decide on the compensation we were to receive for the work that we were forced to perform. This arrangement could mean no compensation at all or that we even had to pay them for taking care of their reindeer, the artist explains.

A former Director for Reindeer Husbandry (“Lapp sheriff” until 1971), at the County Administrative Board is portrayed with the Swedish national emblem of three crowns. During the meeting in Pajala he was hiding behind a door, only to make a sudden entrance. The family perceived this as one of many attempts to get them out of kilter.

– But, Sunna continues, we put him in his place, which resulted in a loss of face for both him and the County Administrative Board.

Chapter 2

A man is lying in a hospital bed. It’s the artist’s grand-father that is being treated at the Pajala Hospital for heart problems. Although he is in the ICU, the staff allow representatives of the judicial system to come in and serve him notice. His condition deteriorates and he dies a short while later, after being denied helicopter transport to a bigger hospital in Gällivare.

The scene on the other side of the fence depicts the forced relocation of the Sunna family’s reindeer in June 1986. The artist’s father and three uncles were working with calf branding at the time. We see them depicted near the upper right-hand corner, standing on the inside of a reindeer fence. A police patrol and some thirty non-Sámi reindeer owners arrive unannounced to enforce the relocation together. The artist recounts:

– We were not informed of anything in advance. Suddenly they were just there claiming that we did not belong to Sattajärvi Sámi village (which we had helped establish) and that we would be moved to Muonio Sámi village. Against the blue in the back-ground appear the carcasses of the reindeer that were stolen and slaughtered in connection to the forced relocation. According to the artist it was a matter of 1,500 reindeer over a period of two years.

Chapter 3

A locked boom blocks the way to a pasture where the Sunna family have their reindeer. The artist’s father has to drive into a ditch in order to get past it. The uncles push from the other side to stop the car from tipping over. Higher up in the image appears parts of the thirty kilometre fence that the County Administrative Board has erected to stop the Sunnas’ reindeer from returning to their natural pastures.

– The fact that the fence stops our reindeer from returning also makes it possible for the authorities to claim that we never belonged in the area and thus they can also cancel our ancient heritage claim, the artist explains. Among the brown-shirts piling up in the upper part of the painting are some of the governors who have come and gone over the years, like the man who in 1999 decided that all the reindeer belonging to the Sunna family were to be forcibly slaughtered before the new millennium.

– The 1980s and 90s were the toughest years, then the pressure against us was immense from all directions, according to Anders Sunna.

His sixteen-year-old cousin took his own life inside a reindeer pen. The gravestone is depicted on the left. The police were harassing the artist’s father and uncles almost daily and at school everyone knew that he was a “Sunna”.

Chapter 4

Anders Sunna’s uncle is leaning against a fence while being confronted by a man whom the Sunna family has given the nickname “the Colonel”. With a malicious, wolfish grin the man aims
his camera at the uncle. The threatening exchange takes place at the Torne river. The family has been tipped off that the Sattajärvi Sámi village is planning to steal their reindeer. To stop the theft they have hidden in the forest.
On the banks on the other side of the river appear two figures. It’s the artist and his father with their dogs, ready to prevent their reindeer from crossing over to the wrong side of the river. Among the men of power on the left-hand-side of the image, appears the civil servant from the County Administrative Board who decided to suspend the Sunna’s earmark, and thus their reindeer herding rights. Also visible is the governor who in 2006 had the Reindeer Husbandry Act from 1971 amended in a way that went straight against what the Sunna family had spent decades fighting for.

Chapter 5

Representatives of the Sami Parliament and the County Administrative Board meet here under celebratory circum-stances. Together they have hit the final nail in the coffin for the Sunna family. The County Administrative Board was, according to the artist, the first to bar the Sunna family from practicing reindeer husbandry in 1980 and now, in 2019, the Sami Parliament has also decided to withdraw their permits.
A piece of paper with their earmarks crossed out is spread out on the table among wine glasses and bread. The merry gathering is framed by the spines of Swedish law books and the coat of arms of the Sami Parliament, as well as decorative rowanberry twigs (for the bitter aftertaste). At the bottom of the festive table stands a badly injured reindeer. Its spine and ribs are exposed, as if the skin and flesh have been torn off. Portraits of older family members are visible on the mangled reindeer’s body. A doe and her calf follow a few steps behind. In the lighter fur of the doe, we can make out further family portraits, from the artist’s generation, while the calf bears images of the children and their cousins.

Chapter 6

The sixth and final part of the work has been burnt down and mainly exists as a charred pile of ashes on the floor, like a manifestation of the fact that nothing worse can be done to the Sunna family. Everything has been taken from them. At the same time, in many cultures fire and ashes are associated with purification. Perhaps the devastation at the end will enable a new beginning, like for the phoenix that was burned at the stake only to be reborn from its own ashes.