The Luossa (salmon) Yoik

Salmon, that strong and precious fish
swims along the bottom of the river.
All through the earth it would have followed the Tana River
If that is the course to follow.
Once again, it swims the long way to reach the source,
it’s skin gets darker and stops eating.
Once again, it turns black to where it came from
to the great ocean
Where salmon abound.
Once again, it glistens in the water
when it returns to its own seas.
There it will find herring to feed on
grow fat again,
and again, look at its old self

This joik text is a re-creation of Luossa juoigan, which is recorded in Otto Rinner’s book Lapalasia lauluja, launched in Helsinki in 1876.

“The use of materials in Luossa is of crucial importance. Copper—Chile’s second-largest export after salmon—and coral are brought together in this work, in which both are defined by their implications for the marine industry, the international market for natural resources, and Chile’s systems of extraction and export. 

The juxtaposition of the joik with the use of copper scraps and dead corals creates a dissonance between the two realities of the salmon, whilst also highlighting the global entanglement of extractive processes, as the use of an indigenous text from the Sami people draws a parallel with the crisis.

Writing Luossa with copper scraps suggests the need for a dialogue on the use of marine resources in the construction of the empire across the hemispheres and continents, identifying the common ways in which the empire exploits and subsumes material, biological and cultural narratives within its own reconstructive discourse. It is, therefore, a dialogue that can only reach a global scale once it has passed through the local context.”

Luke Thomley on La Marealéctica del Salmón, 2023.

On Futuros Multiespecie, edited by Azucena Castro, published by Bartlebooth.

• Production support: Primaink
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• Exhibited at:
  – 2019, Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway
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• Written about:
  – 2023, La Marealéctica del Salmón, Luke Thomley, on Futuros Multiespecie, Azucena Castro (ed.), Bartlebooth
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