Scandinavia
Louise Morris challenges Scandinavia's idyllic international image through the striking work of the region's radical artists.
Scandinavia rests in many minds as a liberal haven, championing equality and with a generous welfare system. So what do artists have to protest about?
Louise Morris challenges her idealised view of Denmark, Finland and Norway, exploring what lies beneath the regionâs glossy international image by examining the work of Scandinaviaâs political artists.
A curtain of reindeer skulls is suspended outside the Norwegian parliament building, swinging macabrely in the breeze. Pile oâSĂĄpmi is the work of indigenous SĂĄmi artist MĂĄret Ănne Sara, a strident artistic protest against the Norwegian governmentâs order to cull her brotherâs reindeers - something she says violates his human and cultural rights as well as jeopardising his income. Norwayâs government states that their reindeer reduction policy, culling a percentage of peopleâs herds, is aimed at preventing the overgrazing of the tundra. Yet this policy has come into conflict with the ancestral and indigenous rights of the Sami.
Danish artist Jeanette Ehlers is determined to make history mark the present with her staggering performance art piece Whip It Good which explicitly visualises Denmarkâs connection to the slave trade - a history Ehlers says is âswept under the carpetâ and not taught in schools. Whip It Goodâs raw physicality and powerfully simple imagery challenges anyone who dares efface colonial history.
Most of the artists in this programme touch on, in some way, the ghosts of injustice past and how that reverberates into the present if it is not acknowledged - offering salient lessons for any region seeking to build a more just future.
Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon
Written and produced by Louise Morris
A Curtains For Radio production for ±«Óătv Radio 4