Culture through textile: the work of Outi Pieski
The Tate has been key in re-assessing the work of women artists, or more accurately in the world of Fine Art, considering it worth assessing in the first place. It has involved accepting and even promoting the idea that textile work can be Art. It’s reassuring to know that this approach, developed by Frances Morris when Tate Director, is still continuing after her departure. The show by Outi Pieski at Tate St Ives is an intriguing mix of textile and paintings. Textile, but above all the communal making of it, are central to the exhibition.
Image: Outi Pieski, photo Heikki Tuuli.
Outi Pieski is deeply concerned with encouraging and re-establishing her Sámi culture, which was traduced by Christian ‘missionaries’ and subsequent assimilation policies. That Sámi artefacts are considered as of ethnographical interest rather than as living culture, and proper Art by Western Museums is a bone of contention. Her work highlights that women were and should be again, considered as equal in a society where everyone had a part to play in surviving in a harsh environment. This deep dive into Sámi culture is accompanied by a fundamental appreciation of the Arctic environment in which the Sámi people live. Indeed Nature is not perceived as ‘other,’ as it is in many Western cultures, but as an essential part of Sámi being. The Sámi live across the Arctic in Sápmi, now, but not traditionally, divided into the different nations, of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. They were nomadic groups, with different traditions, but many binding, shared cultural beliefs and attitudes to the environment.
Image: Outi Pieski, photo Teuri Haarla.
“The Sámi tradition is based on reciprocity, respect and equal status for nature and people. Our land is often pictured as wilderness or no-man’s land. I want to show that it is a cultural environment that has evolved with all living entities, including humans. I use the term ‘radical softness’ when describing my work because I find it radical to love, to wish well to help and heal,” says Pieski, who is based in Ohcejohka, Finland, in the cultural region of Sápmi.
The most striking parts of the exhibition are what Pieski calls her 3-dimensional paintings, such as Beavit/Rising together 11 and Guržot ja guovssahat /Spell on you! 2020. They are large, suspended diamond-shaped textile installations like textile forests of highly coloured, long tassels, created using traditional Sámi shawl making techniques, Duodji or the communal making of these tassels, is central to Pieski’s work, “Duodji is doing or making, crafting and creating. It is a holistic concept that preserves the Sámi philosophy, values and spirituality and connects them with practical skills,” she says. “In Sámi culture, material is not seen as passive, but as an active author. Materials hold energy and power. The energy comes from the material itself, the maker who has transformed the material through skills, care and love and the user who has used and lived with the item and its power.”
Image: Outi Pieski, Rematriation of a Ládjogahpir Return to Máttaráhkká, Installation view, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm. Jean-Baptiste Bérange.
For Pieski, duodji is also a way of revitalising connections between past and future generations, a matriarchal counterforce to a competitive, individual–centred society. “Working by hand and simple repetition are important: tying the knots following the duodji traditions is an act of love. Duodji makes our connections to each other stronger, it opens a living connection to the generations before and after us and makes us belong to the land.”
Her installations are beautifully hung with lighting that emphasises the shadows. Skábmavioddu/Spell on Me was created at Tate in their Porthmeor Studios, in January 2024; its bright clear colours seem to reflect the sea, sky and sun of St Ives. Next to it hangs Guržotjaguovssahat /I Spell on You its black, almost crow-like black tassels representing the Goržžu a bad luck bird or evil spirit and the accompanying pastel-coloured tassels the Guovssat or Siberian jay that brings good luck. “The tassels represent a healing flock that can strengthen communities from intergenerational traumas caused by colonialism and help individuals wounded in our common struggle,” she says.
Image: Outi Pieski, Beavvit – Rising Together II, 2021, detail. Courtesy/ Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, The 13th Gwangju Biennale. Photo/ Sang Tae Kim.
Pieski uses the tassels on her acrylic paintings, sometimes applying the paint with her fingers; the tassels fringe the highly textured surfaces, their colours representing the fells of the Sápmi, region. In some instances, she hides the tassels on the back of the paintings. She adds tiny pieces of textile to other paintings of abstracted natural environments. The scraps represent the ládjogahpir the traditional women’s red ‘horn’ hat made of reindeer fur with seams reinforced with tassels. In her series Rádjajohtin/Pacing the Borders the highly graphic black and white landscapes resemble the texture of reindeer pelt. Each area of land is crossed by borders with the tassels making them visible and according to Pieski emphasising the femininity of the land.
There is an entire gallery devoted to the ládjogahpir. Máttaráhku Ládjogahpir /The Foremothers’ Hat of Pride is a collaborative project with Finnish archaeologist Eeva-Kristiina Nylander, which celebrates the hat, shaped like an upturned shoe. Missionaries considered it sinful, so Sámi women were forced to cut off the horn and have a rounded cap, only to be worn in white, the traditional red, being banned. Shockingly this continued to the early 1970s. The project aims to re-empower women, creating a ‘new decolonial feminism,’ by re-establishing the ládjogahpir through workshops and conversations across all of Northern Sápmi. It has involved touring Western ethnographical museums to find examples – none on display and all in store. Having taken photos of these hats, 47 of the 60 they discovered are presented in a Warhol-like wall of photos. 47 Eanemus Ohccojuvvon Máttaráhkut/The 47 Most Wanted Foremothers. The work alludes to Warhol’s Most Wanted Men – 1964, a series of police mugshots. This version refers to what Pieski calls, “a powerful matriarchal group of foremothers ready to return home.” Her Feminism whilst powerful is not hostile.
Image: Outi Pieski, Golleeana Land of Gold, 2013. © Ella Tommila EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.
The installation also includes a wall of photos of Pieski’s hat-wearing daughter as well as some actual hats, all installed against Warhol-like wallpaper of multiple hats. Pieski resurrects the ládjogahpir, making it extremely visible, hoping to encourage museums to reconsider Sámi culture and art, seeing it not just as dusty artefacts but as a living thriving culture. She raises important ideas around First Nation rights, the nature of colonialism and its application across the world not just in Southern and Eastern nations.
Image: Outi Pieski, Rematriation of a Ládjogahpir Return to Máttaráhkká, 2019. Photo collage, in collaboration with Gáddjá Haarla Pieski.
Pieski also engages visitors in a different way with nature, breaking down barriers between the environment, animals and ourselves. Her practice encompasses Soabadit the Sámi concept that balances life with the environment by uniting spiritual, ancestral, elemental and practical knowledge. A worldview that is indispensable in the harsh Arctic environment, one suppressed by missionary programmes and assimilation policies. She looks to art to strengthen contemporary Sámi culture. Yet much of her narrative relies on significant bodies of explanatory text. This only works because the objects themselves are so unexpected and engaging. Pieski wants to reinstate Sámi culture and give it and her art the status of Western art. She has now.
Guest edited by Corinne Julius
The exhibitions last weekend will be a festival of workshops, performance, film screenings and talks exploring identity, culture, and environment. Find out more;
www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/outi-pieski-last-weekend
Outi Pieski is on show at Tate St Ives until 6 May 2024. Find out more:
www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/outi-pieski
Find out more about Outi Pieski:
www.outipieski.com