Temporary Extention Of The Russian Museum Of Ethnography In St. Petersburg

The installation explores the divergence between today’s globalised political and economical practices and the construction of national /local/personal identities in an increasingly homogenised world through a temporary extention of the exhibition on nomads in Siberia displayed at the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg.

The installation travels as an itinerant exhibition, which pop ups out of a
suitcase, contains objects, pictures, documentaries, books…that update
the information about the siberian reindeer herders current lifestyle; this is, events that have occurred since 1925 which led to the evaporation of their traditional economies, housing and identities.

Traditional nomads have been viewed by the dominant sedentary societies as comprising backward and unproductive societies which constrain the development of the State political power . Historically, governments from all over the world, as occured during the Soviet Union with the nomads from Siberia, have forced them into settlement through various educational and employment policies or by restricting the area in which they are free to move.