Liisa-Ravna Finbog

Dr. Liisa-Rávná Finbog is a Sámi scholar and duojár (Sámi storyteller and knowledge-holder) from Oslo, Vaapste, and Skánit in the Norwegian part of Sápmi.

As a long-term practitioner of duodji (Sámi practices of aesthetics and storytelling), her PhD in museology combined her practice with an Indigenous research focus that looked into duodji as a Sámi system of knowledge; the devastating effect of the colonial epistemicide on the practice of duodji; and how Sámi communities today work to re-remember practices within duodji and in the process negotiate Sámi identities; and lastly, how museums with their vast collections of Sámi heritage objects play into these processes. Extending from this research, she curated the seminar ‘Dåajmijes Vuekie – the material expressions of Sámi aesthetics’, which was convened during the Sámi Art Festival of 2019. The same year she was also the curator of a seminar convened jointly by Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and Norwegian Crafts (NC) relating to the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, entitled ‘Båassjoeraejken Tjïrr – Workshops and conversations on Indigenous languages, aesthetic practices and landscapes’.