Utstilling: Nettverksbyggeren – Elsa Laula Renberg.

Exhibition: The networker - Elsa Laula Renberg

1. 1 April 2020

Get to know the pioneering woman Elsa Laula Renberg – a rare network builder. On 6th February, we are opening the exhibition presenting Elsa Laula and her tenacious work for the Sámi people. During the opening, we will be showing the radio cinema «In Elsa Laula's Footsteps Through Sápmi».

WhatExhibition Opening: The Network Builder – Elsa Laula Renberg
When 6 February
Where: Centre for Northern Peoples / Senter for nordlige folk, The Gallery
Time4.00 PM
Exhibition period6 February – 31 March

The pioneer woman Elsa Laula Renberg is one of the most important champions for the Sámi people of all time; she was determined and exceptionally skilled at engaging others. Elsa Laula was the main person behind the first Sámi Congress on 6 February 1917. The congress's opening date, 6 February, is now celebrated as Sámi National Day in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.

Radio Cinema

We are opening the exhibition with radio cinema. «In the Footsteps of Elsa Laula through Sápmi – 100 Years of Sámi Rights Struggle» is a radio documentary with Sámi women's voices. Through four episodes, everything from the fight for natural resources, colonisation, the Norwegianisation policy, racial biology to language, art and culture is depicted. Many of the issues Elsa Laula fought for a hundred years ago are proving to be relevant today as well.

Astrid Fadnes is one of the creators of the documentary. She will introduce us to the process behind it and play an episode: “A picture can change».

Elsa Laula Renberg. Illustration: Helene Gedda.

Listen to the episodes from In the footsteps of Elsa Laula, NRK

Listen, Elsa, sing. Renberg

Elsa Laula Renberg (1877-1931) was born near Vilhelmina on the Swedish side. Her parents were nomadic Sámi reindeer herders who moved between the counties of Helgeland and Västerbotten, at a time when the colonisation of Scandinavia had reached all Sámi areas. The conflict between the reindeer herders and the settlers encroaching on the best grazing lands marked Elsa Laula's upbringing.

Elsa Laula understood early on that she had to gain allies and started by building a network. When she qualified as a midwife in Stockholm, she became part of a Sámi student environment that worked for Sámi rights. Together, they founded the first Sámi association: Lapparnas Centralförbund (1904) and the Brurskanken Sámi association in Mosjøen in 1907.

Elsa Laula was only 27 years old when she wrote her own manifesto: Life or death. She highlighted themes such as land ownership, reindeer grazing rights, drunkenness and school conditions. She believed it was a matter of life or death for her people who were subjected to so much injustice.

There is only one way,
and it goes via a unified Sámi association
which functions in every nerve of life
the Sámi population.

Quotes from Elsa Laula's manifesto (translated from Swedish)

It wasn't until the Brurskanken Sami Women's Association was founded in 1910 that things started moving. With Elsa Laula as chair, they were strong and active, and plans were made for the first Sami National Congress in Trondheim in 1917. The invitations specifically encouraged women to participate, and the proportion of women was formidable: a full 40 % of the 150 participants were women.

Watch the film: Elsa Laula Renberg, The Woman Who United Sápmi

The exhibition has been created by Helgeland Museum with support from Fritt Ord and the Sámi Parliament. The majority of the photographs in the exhibition are from Thomas Renberg's photo collection, donated to Vefsn Museum in the 1990s. The exhibition was part of Tråante 2017, the centenary celebration of the very first Sámi conference, which took place in Trondheim from 6 February 1917.

Learn more about Elsa Laula Renberg, nordligefolk.no