Anders Sunna is a member of the indigenous Sámi peoples who inhabit the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula, Russia.
Sunna’s work chronicles the ongoing persecution of the Sámi people by the Swedish authorities and his family’s struggle for the right to practice reindeer husbandry following the Swedish Government’s introduction of the 1971 Reindeer Act. Subsequently declared illegal but written into the constitution, this Act forced the Sámi people to adhere to state regulations regarding reindeer herding and culling and to herd reindeer on behalf of Swedish property owners without compensation. Sunna’s family immediately resisted this affront to their cultural heritage and the substantial financial fallout, igniting a conflict with the authorities and other Sámi that continues to this day. In a double betrayal, Sunna and many other Sámi fighting for justice feel the Sámi Parliament – politically subordinate to the Swedish state – has done little to protect them.
For Sunna, art is integral to Sámi life, a universal language he uses as a “weapon in the political struggle” and a powerful agent for change. Considered a forerunner of the new wave of politically engaged Sámi artists, Sunna paints brutal scenes of colonial violence: land and resource theft, police harassment and environmental destruction, forcing the political perpetrators in faraway offices into the public eye.
Anders Sunna was born in Kieksiäisvaara, Sápmi in 1985. He lives and works in Jokkmokk, Sápmi, Sweden. Sunna was one of three artists included in The Sámi Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022. The resulting work Illegal Spirits of Sápmi was subsequently acquired for the Moderna Museet, Stockholm’s permanent collection.