Barbara Sjoholm will join St. Olaf College on Wednesday, October 4, for a book talk on her new book, From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture in Tomson Hall at 4:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. 

The story of the Indigenous Sámi living in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia unfolds across borders and centuries, in museums and private collections. Deftly written and amply illustrated, From Lapland to Sápmi brings to light the history of collecting, displaying, and returning Sámi material culture, as well as the story of Sámi creativity and individual and collective agency.  

"An important contribution to Sámi stories of loss, recovery, and the struggle for equality, as well as the right to manage one’s own cultural heritage on one’s own terms. As Barbara Sjoholm charts the transformation of Lapland to Sápmi in objects, joiks, and storytelling, Sámi voices emerge to share essential aspects of their history. As we say in Sápmi, ‘Čálli giehta ollá guhkás—A writing hand reaches far.’" —Káren Elle Gaup, coeditor of Bååstede: The Return of Sámi Cultural Heritage

"Barbara Sjoholm’s From Lapland to Sápmi chronicles in vivid words and images the colonial encounters of Sámi and non-Sámi as told through the objects, images, and recordings that eventually became sequestered in Nordic museums and archives. It also tells the inspiring story of efforts to recover and return these items to their rightful communities as part of Sámi decolonization and self-determination." —Thomas A. DuBois, coauthor of Sámi Media and Indigenous Agency in the Arctic North

"There is much of great interest that readers can learn from this book." —UP Book Review

"Many will find From Lapland to Sápmi to be a sensitive, engaging, and informative work by an author with a deep, apparent love of Sámi culture and solid experience in museum and archival research." —Art Libraries Society of North America