The sensation of trust is closely aligned with feeling safe, and yet, from a historical perspective, there has been little cause for Indigenous peoples to feel safe. The violence inflicted on our communities and our bodies in the continued process of colonization; the silencing of our thoughts and our voices; as well as the marginalization of everything we are, makes it almost impossible to look outside of ourselves to feel either safe or trusting.  How then, may we find it in ourselves to show trust in the very institutions and structures that has failed to offer safe spaces where our diversity is viewed as beneficial and empowering, rather than as a deficit otherness to be combatted and subdued? Challenging the seemingly impossible, four Sámi artists, thinkers, guardians, and practicioners come together in a discoursive exploration of trust. Together, we walk the paths of imagination to see how trust may be concieved of in an Indigenous and Sámi context, and furthermore what implications said imagination may have on our ongoing and necessary relations with non-Indigenous structures and institutions.

The conversation is commissioned by the Goethe-Institutes of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and facilitated by Sámi scholar and curator, Dr. Liisa-Rávná Finbog, from the Norwegian side of the border. Also participating in the discussion is Sámi word-warriors Timimie Märak, from the Swedish side of the border and Ida Helene Benonisen from the Norwegian side of the border, Sámi human rights activists Emmi Nuorgam from the Finnish side of the border and Beaska Niillas from the Norwegian side of the border.