Campfire in a Zoo (2019) is a puppet animation installation
that explores the complexities of exhibiting and being seen. It is based
on the family story of Markku Laakso’s great-grandparents, who with other Sámis toured Germany in 1930 as part of ethnographic exhibitions known also as human zoos.
Human
zoos were educational, anthropological displays that often incorporated
scientific ideas of the day. In an age before cinema or tourism, they
were the only way for ordinary people to encounter live indigenous
people. From the 1880s onwards, groups of indigenous people toured
around Europe in so-called human caravans. The tours were planned
carefully, and the caravans were furnished with appropriate artefacts,
clothes and utensils; the Sámi travelled with reindeer and dogs. Because
the shows were so popular, they were often held in zoos.
Later
the practice of putting indigenous people on display as specimens came
under criticism for constituting minority abuse. Racial theories were in
crisis and the popularity of human zoos declined. These ethnographic
expositions nevertheless had far-reaching social repercussions; they
also affected the status of the Sámi in the North. More recently human
zoos have come to be studied from a cultural encounter perspective.
Indigenous people joined the caravans because they wanted to see the
world and have new experiences. The Sámi even felt they were cultural
ambassadors of a kind. In the exhibitions, the colonial perspective
merged with personal experience.
Dahlsten and Laakso use
cinematic means to put distance between themselves and the story of
Laakso’s ancestors. Using puppets they can assume the roles of Simo,
Ella Stiina and Veikko in the German zoos. The “truthfulness” at the
core of the ethnographic exhibitions required that everything had to be
“authentic”. Campfire in a Zoo responds to this demand by creating an
entire fictitious world that is at once genuine and staged, just like
the Sámi in the zoos.
Annika Dahlsten (b. 1975
Vaasa) and Markku Laakso (b. 1970 Enontekiö) are visual artists based in
Turku who use photography, digital media and performance in their
collaborative works. They have exhibited in Gothenburg, Medellin in
Columbia, London and Berlin. In her solo work, Dahlsten is visual artist
and animation artist, Laakso is a painter known best for his pictures
featuring Elvis.
Acknowledgements: Ministry of Education and
Culture, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, City of Turku, Turku Art
Society, and Arts Council of Varsinais-Suomi.
www.dahlstenlaakso.com
