History is a realistic genre. However, one can ask what kind of realism is at play, and what kind of truth is historical.
Margareta Bergman’s Vilse i Sameland (Lost in Sápmi) is a photo book containing images produced during an artist residency at Varanger Samiske Museum in Varangerbotn, Troms and Finnmark county, Northern Norway, in 2008. The book is part of a project inviting a reconsideration of history-making and cultural heritage, specifically via the institutions that exhibit visual and material culture. An outsider’s gaze is integral to the approach, the goal being to see the history-making process and showcase it in a problematized way. The design of the book is inspired by catalogs produced by folk museums, a strategy employed to speak to the methods of museum presentation.
While Bergman cites her time in Varangerbotn as the starting point for Vilse i Sameland, the particular approach is noteworthy: “I made myself open to the encounter with the unknown, and allowed myself to be personal, humorous, and illogical. I followed whims, coincidences.” She describes the final display of the book: “The presentation is museum-esque, while the content directs attention to the irrational, mysterious, and absurd aspects of human beings’ experience of reality — a kind of poetic documentary. The idea was to mix the museum’s objectivity with the mundane and enigmatic.”
