Girjegumpi: The Sámi Architecture Library

Girjegumpi is a nomadic, collaborative library put together over the last fifteen years by architect and artist Joar Nango.

It is an archive comprising an expanding collection of more than 500 books embracing topics such as Sámi architecture and design, traditional and ancestral building knowledge, activism, and decoloniality. This archive also includes artworks, films, tools, reused materials, and more.

This year Nango, alongside a team of collaborators, unfolds this structure, social space, and source of knowledge around architecture in Sápmi at the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The pavilion officially represents Finland, Norway and Sweden through ArkDes, the National Museum of Norway, and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.

As an itinerant, collective library, the project has evolved and expanded with site-specific adaptations as it has travelled to different locations in Sápmi and the broader Nordic region. This journey involves multiple collaborations, including artists and craftspeople including Katarina Spik Skum, Anders Sunna, Ken Are Bongo, and Anders Rimpi, among others. As a gathering space, it hosts large groups of people. As a reading room, it offers an environment for solitary study and reflection. As a critical project, it builds spaces for Indigenous imagination.

Nomadic by design, Girjegumpi is a living project addressing the relevance of Indigenous culture in architectural discourse and construction today: the importance of collaborative work, building techniques and use of resources in rapidly changing climate conditions, the use of locally grounded material flow and sensitive approaches to landscapes and nature. It highlights the architect’s position towards a more polyphonic understanding of the world.

Girjegumpi

The word Girjegumpi is derived from two Northern Sámi words: ‘Girji’, meaning book, and ‘Gumpi’ – a small mobile reindeer herder cabin on sledges, often pulled by a snowmobile. This wordplay refers to a library, an archive, and the construction in which these are stored and transported.

Girjegumpi has unfolded in many locations since 2018. When it is not travelling, it is based at the Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš1 in Kárášjohka/Karasjok. A sister version of Girjegumpi is held by the National Gallery of Canada2 in Odàwàg/Ottawa.