Anders Sunna

Anders Sunna (b. 1985) is a Northern Sámi artist from a reindeer herding family in Kieksiäisvaara, in the Swedish part of Sápmi. Sunna’s politically charged artworks narrate the history of the violence and oppression against the Sámi people and very specifically address his family’s five-decades-long struggle for their right and acknowledgement to be forest reindeer herders. Due to governmental politics, the family lost their reindeer earmarks, a customary practice that manifests the individual ownership of reindeer and the right to work as a herder. Sunna calls himself a “guerrilla Sámi“, using his artistic practice to empower the Sámi community. With powerful imagery and political satire his paintings, graffiti, sculptures and installations depict how the abuse of authority and power lead to the exploitation of land and natural resources, forced displacement, and racial persecution of the Sámi people.