Beyond the River

In this installation, Movko-Mägi brings together clay sculptures representing Sami warriors, a tapestry depicting a deer family, and a video projection featuring digital representations of transformations between species, worlds, and realities. The tapestry, which has been copied so many times that it is difficult to trace the original, serves as a metaphor for the way in which ideas and images can be copied and disseminated in the digital age. The work explores the blurring of the boundary between the real and the virtual.

 

In Sami mythology, the idea of a “river of blood” is used as a metaphor for the ways in which different worlds or realms are separated from one another, and can also be seen as a symbol of the ways in which different cultural or political spheres are separated from one another. The installation also invites viewers to reflect on the myth of Myandash, a figure in Sami mythology who is able to transform between human and deer form at will and is said to have taught the art of hunting to humans. Like Myandash, who lives in a lavvu made of deer bones and skins and can transform between his human and deer forms at will, we too live in a world where the boundaries between the physical and digital are increasingly blurred.