Katarina Pirak Sikku

Katarina Pirak Sikku is an artist from Sápmi in Sweden, who lives and works in Jokkmokk, Sápmi / Northern Sweden. Educated at Konsthögskolan in Umeå and skilled in Duodje, Katarina works with handicraft, paintings, drawings, and art in public spaces. Her work is now exhibited at Tensta Konsthall, and her work on protests against the mine in Gállok was shown at the Moderna Museet (both Stockholm). Her exhibition, Nammaláhpán (Bildmuseet, Umeå), was based on studying racial biology executed in Sápmi. 

I am the last one who saw the river alive.

“Jag är den sista generation som sejj Luleälven levande,“ Roland Boman, 2011, and title of her painting exhibited at WIENWOCHE, describes the local situation of the impact of hydropower along the Lule River in Sápmi / Northern Sweden, especially for the indigenous Sami people. Due to the dam many people and more-than-human beings lost their environment and had to adapt to the given situation, facing many losses. Even decades after the impoundments the diverse impacts on traditions of living with nature, a crucial basis for Sami live-ways, continue. Katarina Pirak Sikku will speak about this situation, about further extractivism and colonialism in Sápmi, and how her artistic work responds.