Archives and libraries are currently definitely en vogue and will keep on being so next year. Architect and artist Joar Nango based in Romsa/Tromsø, Norway, will travel with his Sámi Architecture Library to Venice for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (20th May - 26th November 2023), curated by Lesley Lokko.
Nango works with a variety of mediums, developing site-specific interventions, design collaborations, photography, publications and videos, on the themes of Sámi and Indigenous architecture and craft.
Trained at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, he is a founding member of the architecture collective FFB (2010) and has also collaborated with choreographer and director Elle Sofe Sara on a dance performance, "BIRGET; Ways to deal, ways to heal", that will be on next year at the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. Alongside Snøhetta, Econor, and 70°N arkitektur, Nango is also working on the new Sámi National Theatre and Sámi High School and Reindeer Husbandry School in Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, currently under construction.
Girjegumpi is Nango's long-term project: for over fifteen years Nango has been collecting books about Sámi architecture and, in 2018, his Girjegumpi itinerant, collective library finally opened to the public.
The word "Girjegumpi" is derived from two Northern Sámi words: "Girji", meaning book, and "Gumpi" – a small mobile reindeer herder cabin on sledges, often pulled by a snowmobile. The wordplay refers to a library, an archive, and the construction in which the materials are stored and transported.
Girjegumpi features as a whole 500 rare volumes and contemporary books about Sámi architecture and design, traditional and ancestral building knowledge and techniques, resources in changing climate conditions, and approaches to landscape and nature, activism and collaborative work, decoloniality and practices to address the relevance of Indigenous culture in architectural discourse and construction today.
The library is conceived as a nomadic space: it hosts large groups of people, but also offers an environment for study and reflection. As Girjegumpi travelled it expanded and evolved opening up to multiple collaborations, including artists and craftspeople such as Katarina Spik Skum, Anders Sunna, and Ken Are Bongo.
Nango's library will be installed in the Giardini space, at the Nordic Countries Pavilion, representing Finland (Arkkitehtuurimuseo, Helsinki), Norway (Nasjonalmuseum, Oslo), and Sweden (ArkDes, Stockholm).
Designed by Sverre Fehn in 1962, the pavilion was conceived to represent forms of cooperation across the Nordic countries, but in the context of the Biennale the Girjegumpi will open up to an international audience to show that Sámi culture has a lot to offer, especially when it comes to transforming both natural and human-made objects and materials into physical design solutions.
If you're a fashion designer rather than an architect, you may find the materials about the Duodji Artistic Experiments intriguing: in Sámi culture, the term Duodji indicates "handicrafts", from tools to clothing and accessories, designed to be functional, but made incorporating artistic elements. If you are instead a knitwear designer, you may want to check the architecture and knitwear project Nango did a while back about the "Lavvu", the traditional Sámi tent reinvented as patterns for woollen sweaters.
As the main theme of the 2023 Venice Biennale is "The Laboratory of the Future", Nango's Girjegumpi at the Nordic Pavilion should therefore be conceived as a chance to learn more from another culture and see if any of the Sámi teachings may be borrowed and applied to our collective futures.
Girjegumpi has unfolded in many locations since 2018 - from arts, culture and music festivals to centres for architecture and museums. When it is not travelling, it is based at the Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš (Sámi Centre for Contemporary Art) in Kárášjohka/Karasjok, while a smaller version of the Girjegumpi is held by the National Gallery of Canada in Odàwàg/Ottawa.
For those who may not be able to check the library in person next year at the Venice Biennale, there is still a chance to look through some of its materials thanks to the Virtual Library of Sámi Architecture, a project by Joar Nango, in collaboration with ArkDes.
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