Dollet (Grasp)
2006
Installation with smashed glass, blood, ash, soap, fat, photo, text, audio, dimensions variable
English spoken
Courtesy of the artist
Dollet is a piece in which the artist explores her own history and questions whether sorrow can be inherited. By measuring herself, she has sought to add her own name to the list found in Anthropometry of the Swedish Lapps, a book by the Swedish human geneticist Sten Wahlund. Even though she cannot change the moment in history to which this book belongs, she has tried to put herself in the same situation as those whose were recorded in it, in order to understand what it means. The instrument that the artist is seen using in the image is the same one that was used by a race biologist in 1923. The race biologist worked on an expedition to the north of Sweden organised by the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology. During the same expedition, the artist’s father-in-law was also measured. The sound of the piece tells her family history.
Artist’s Bio:
Katarina Pirak Sikku is an artist living in Jokkmokk. In 2005, she graduated with a Master of Fine Art from Umeå University. She works mainly with the techniques of drawing and photography. Many of her works are text based. In recent years, she has researched historical studies of race within the field of biology. She wants to know what happened. The Swedish State Institute of Racial Biology conducted a large survey among the Sámi people in the 1920s. She is now taking the perspective of those on the other side of the survey: those who were examined. In her acclaimed 2014 exhibition Nammaláhpán at the Bildmuseet in Umeå, she wanted to make the story her own, to go from being an object to becoming a subject. Pirak Sikku’s works are often about grief, identity, power and ethnicity.