But then suddenly I did…
Not because I´m the kind of person that enjoys pain. Not because I think piercings are so cool. This piercing is on my chest, its 3,5 cm and I´m going to hang the sami brooch there. In my skin. In my next performance. And I´m not hard enough to put the needle through my own skin during the performance, so I had to have a piercing artist do it for me. I did it because I don´t feel sami enough. I don´t feel Norwegian enough either. I don´t feel that I belong. This sami identity that I suddenly got, I feel I stole it. Some people mean that I should let it be. And I wish I could, just as much as I wish that I was still an engineer. Calm and steady, happy in my well paid job. Unfortunately I´m not. I´m a confused artist struggling for life in a hard and competitive world where you’re always poor (in a Norwegian manner) and never good enough. I wish the question of identity were simpler. That I could know that I was valuable only by existing. Unfortunately I know I´m not.
I´m sami whether I want it or not. I´m also a Norwegian, from a good family of the people who ruined the lives of my other family. That is what assimilation is about. Or maby theire all related when you go back far enough. The assimilation of my ancestors is a pain that I will always carry. I´m an artist whether I want it or not. Whether someone likes my art or not. It is whom I am, what makes my heart beat. Whether I like it or not. Sometimes I actually do like it, but mostly I hate it.
More is coming. Because it has to. It is who I am. Maybe it´s not who I was, but what I am about to become…