Back to the Roots

Back to the Roots is a series of 2 short documentaries that tells the story of my journey back to my homeland in Siberia and all the feelings I went through while making it. 

Part I.

After having travelled to 40+ countries, Anna realised something was missing in her life. While she was strolling around museums in Spain, she found inspiration in how local painters mastered expressing deep love for their homeland. This is when the question popped up in her mind: "What have I done to connect with my birthplace? What do I know?"

It was at this very moment when this project  was born and got its name "Back to the Roots". In this first part, you will see how it all started and what it took to get to see Anna's family in Yamal Peninsula.

Part II.

In this second part, you will to learn about the Siberian tribe called Nenets, the way they are preserving their nomadic lifestyle and trying to adapt to modern realities.  From very personal conversations to intimate videos with some members of Anna's extended family, you will be immerged and introduced to an indigenous culture of twenty-first-century herders on the brink of extinction. The main objective is to question why we should pay more attention where we were born and appreciate our roots.

This video includes music compositions by Crooked Savages (00:36-03:00, 24:15-27:18)

"Back to the Roots" is an honest and non-exotifing portrayal of contemporary Nenets culture, their lifestyle and traditions. The documentary also shows glimpses of the harsh but beautiful tundra scenery which is the land of the tundra Nenets." 

- Erik Solfeldt, archaeologist and ethnographer, Stockholm (SE).

This project has been quite a personal challenge as I did all the shooting, scripting and editing on my own, but at the same time I am proud of having completed such a big project even though it took a long while to put it all together. As a result of this process, I will always remember that hard work pays off.  This documentary was released in 2022 thanks to a crowdfunding campaign in 2016, and hopefully it will find its audience and be a part of something bigger. 

Multi-Material Analogies

On the use of Visual Ethnography to Understand the Past

This, partly scientific and partly artistic, project aims to use visual ethnography, such as documentaries and photos, in combination with ethnographic literature, interviews and artifacts from museum collections to gain a better understanding of how Indigenous peoples of northern Siberia interact with their material cultures and environments. This understanding will then be used to interpret the archaeological traces of past humans and how they interact with their material cultures and environments. By combining Indigenous knowledge and philosophy with western relational and decolonial philosophy the project seeks to develop more comprehensive and inclusive interpretations of human-environmental relations of both the ethnographic present and the archaeological past.

The event took place in Etnografiska museet in Stockholm with a Q&A session on the 8/02 2023.