Marja Helander

Shelter

Shelter (Suodji) is an adaptation of an old story from Utsjoki, Sápmi, to the present. It is a legend of what the director´s relative, Ovllá-Ivvár Helander, did during the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 in Utsjoki. Ovllá-Ivvár decided to fool Death and take his fate into his own hands. Today we are facing similar threats. The protagonist of the film is walking in Ovllá-Ivvár´s footsteps. But at the end, who its really who?

Trambo

The video shows the artist in Sámi costume bouncing on a trampoline in a snowy landscape. In between bouncing, she drags the trampoline through the snow - an exhausting exercise judging by her heavy puffing. Marja Helander is a descendant of the Ohcejohka (Utsjoki) Sami on her father's side. Many of her works deal with the challenges of straddling two cultures as part-Finn, part-Sámi. In her early series of photographs The Generations, she juxtaposes self-portraits with old family snapshots and archival material from the Finnish Heritage Agency.