Q. Can you tell me a bit about your role in the DBIWP programming?

I will be participating as an artist, coming as a guest, and performing. I’m just so grateful to come. It’s also really highlighting how important it is that we gather amongst our own communities because we really need that in these times. I do come with open heart and I bring myself. And let’s see how it’s gonna be and what is needed in the space at that moment. I see myself as a storyteller, a modern version of a Sámi storyteller that my elders have been. My grandparents, they were storytellers as well and doing handcrafts, arts, telling stories, yoiking, which is our traditional way of storytelling that comes from throat singing practice. And you remember and tell about the places, you tell stories via yoiking them.

And then my storytelling is coming from different forms of art. And then it’s how we do storytelling in drag, because it’s kind of a new thing in our community.

Q. Could you speak about the connections between your art and being a Sámi person? And Girjái?

Art has the power to bring people together and radically dream. And then this radical, decolonial, dreaming practice has been super super important to me. And basically, it’s really guiding me within all my arts. What I do.

When there’s no structural oppression, harassment, no racism, everyone is really equal—what if you write down your dream where you want to be? And then it was first, Whoa! It’s so hard to dream outside these structures, what would really be there? So then we just basically jam there together with my working group. We are all performers/facilitators. It’s also mostly improvised. But there’s dance, there’s yoiks. There are also the archive materials that we have found from our elders and trying to bring them back. And we invite people to dream with us. And also “How we can decolonize our ways of working?” has been a very important question. How do we really operate in this in this structure that we have here?

Q. What made you want to participate in DBIWP?

As a trans and Indigenous person, queer person, I’m always so touched by how we are living geographically so far away. But power comes when we are together and there’s common ground and understanding, even though, of course, our experiences are different. It has been a healing process.

Q. How might the themes of joy and decolonization and other themes in your work be woven into your performance at DBIWP?

All my work is rooted with decolonizing and querying stuff and humor and radical choice, so important. That is really something that I want to bring and spread and share with others as well. Because, as I said earlier, our people, we have survived a ton of stuff. And we’re facing all the time new challenges, and they try to silence us, and they always find new ways to oppress us. But what we can do? We cannot change the government in one second, but what can we do? We can change our own existence, our feeling in our community. We can always gather, we can always take time for our own community. I find rest is resistance, as well, how important for us to collectively rest, that we can also heal, that we manage and we can thrive in this crazy times when we are facing so many genocides. We are just living in the times of multiple crises. And it’s just so uncertain. So I feel that’s why it’s even more important to us to build in our own communities the way we take care of ourselves.

Q. And has your perspective on the importance of this shifted over time?

Totally. It’s even more important that we gather, it’s really the only thing that we can do right now. We can gather around and figure out together and take moments. Create spaces where we can actually rest for a bit, because it’s very exhausting right now. And I think, DBIWP, I’m hopeful, will be a space that for joy and for gathering and for rest and support, something non-commercial.

How important in these days to have this kind of event and places where we can gather, and that are based really on the values that we all share.

Q. I’m wondering about supports that you’ve had for your dance and drag performance within Indigenous community.

It’s been so lovely to see how it resonates. You know that you do something. You invite people. And then you see how much it resonates with people. And so it has been really powerful. People had said they have longed for this, how much we share in common and how, even though we were talking about our perspective, what decoloniality means for instance, in Sápmi, our Sámi land, and how we want to operate there and then—it was just so lovely to hear from different folks, just talk together about what decoloniality means in different contexts.

And of course, nowadays, when we can access the internet, it’s making it more accessible to also connect with other Indigenous communities, and I’ve gotten so much support just seeing what Indigenous, queer folks are doing other places. Helsinki is so white and we’re not many Indigenous, just being a small minority. And how our approach to drag is different. So it has, for me, been so important to see how my [relatives] are doing in other places and get inspiration. And share together. I’ve gotten so much space to grow here.

Q. You said that your drag is different. Can you speak to some of the differences?

What marks my drag? Nowadays it’s really open. I do also feminine drag. I do different kind of characters. I feel drag is just a playground, and really it can be anything and everything. So there’s just the ideas that I have in my mind. They’re coming out in the form of drag. And sometimes it really resonates with people. And that has been really nice for me. There’s some idea, vision, feeling, and then it comes in the form of drag, and I get to share it with others, and then we can continue there. And that’s something that is very beautiful, and I value.

Q. Do you have a take home message for any Indigenous queer Two-Spirit folks who might be attending DBIWP?

I guess my message is we’re all still here. We are still queer. That our ancestors they have survived so many stuff, and we will survive as well. And I can’t wait to meet everyone, and I feel the radical, Indigenous joy is so important. Rest is also resistance. We’ll never stop resisting. And then it’s also so important to take care of ourselves when we are thriving in the midst of these very uncertain times. So I guess my message is that I hope this will be a weekend that we can chill. We can maybe take a break a little bit and just be together collectively. And there’s so much power in that.

So I’m just really looking forward that we can just gather and be together and build these alternative worlds, we can build this structure, and really it leaves always a mark when you’re in the space with Indigenous trans, queer folks, and when you’re in space physically, with these people. At least for me it shifts this all my whole, how I feel in this space. So I’m already emotional about the feeling, how great it’s gonna be when we all can gather because we are siblings all across the globe. So I’m just very, very looking forward and excited to meet everyone.

Q. And if you have a take home message for any allies who are attending DBIWP?

You’re welcome to join. But don’t take too much space. So I would say to allies, really think in the space where you are at, and think how much space you take.

Q. Are there any other projects that you’re working on?

It’s happening this year that we’re going also other Indigenous territories with Girjái. Indigenous drag excellence, it’s also an ongoing project.

We’re [Ritni’s working group] doing this photo exhibition, and it’s basically inspired by our community members—it’s photo portrayals of these people, fictional. Of course, good storytellers. The stories are, really based on our community members and the queer community members that are not, maybe, publicly speaking so much. So then our aim with that for the exhibition is to bring those voices. And just show amazing Sámi queer arts with these drag characters. And then also amongst the photos, the visual portrait, I’m gonna write stories the community members would tell about them. Our traditional storytelling is obviously the oral storytelling. But now this is, we’re going to explore how it would be in this modern day, drag.