Voyage

Voyage

Voyage is a long-term artistic and activist project responding to the decline of native Atlantic salmon and the fragile ecosystems of the Deatnu River.

Developed by Ellos Deatnu/Jenni Laiti and Invisible Flock together with Sámi activists, local communities, scientists, and artists, the project takes the form of interventions, community gatherings, sculpture and audio-visual works that foreground Sámi self-determination in the face of ecological crisis and systemic exclusion from decision-making.

Exhibitions

Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia
no beginning, no end: Decolonial Gestures in Sámi Worldbuilding
11/09/2026 – 14/03/2027
The Sami Center for Contemporary Art (SDG)
2028, Sápmi

Mediums

Intervention

Land Art

Installation

Spatial sound

Video

Partners

Ellos Deatnu!

KUMU Art Museum

The Sami Center for Contemporary Art (SDG)

Wellcome Collection

VOICE (Horizon Programme of the European Union)

Tidal Arts

Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland

Andaras and Astrid take the baton and begin their stretch of the voyage

Still image from video installation - Andaras and Astrid take the baton and begin their stretch of the voyage

Still image from video installation - Pink salmon gathering under Neiden waterfall

Voyage
Dual screen video installation
A long form, durational film, experienced across two large projections following a collective rowing relay along the Deatnu River in July 2024, a 200-kilometer journey undertaken for the salmon, for the rivers and for the future. Rowers travel to meet the sea, and salmon swim to meet the river. Boats are returned to the water and salmon return to a 400-meter dam constructed across the largest vein of Deatnu. Voyage becomes rivering, entwining the lives of salmon and people, water and memory, in a shared gesture of belonging, resistance and return.

Sound World of the Salmon
Spatial soundscape
Dams across Deatnu were built from thousands of individual metal poles that rattle and sing with the winds, vibrations that entirely alter the sound-space of the salmon. The Voyage soundscape is a sonification of salmon population data collected across 20 years, mixed with field recordings from Sieiddá dam during the 2025 summer migration.

Machines That Move Rivers
Kinetic sculpture
As the Atlantic salmon population declined, increasing numbers of Pacific salmon began migrating to the Deatnu River. In 2023 and 2025, Norway built a dam to prevent their upstream passage in an effort to protect the native Atlantic salmon population. The dam, implemented without free, prior and informed consent, prevents the Sámi from fishing for Pacific salmon and from equitably participating in the river’s local Sámi governance.
Machines That Move Rivers responds to the swimming patterns of Atlantic and Pacific salmon recorded at the Sieiddá dam in summer 2025, as salmon are caught, others circle back, and some are let through to spawn. The sculpture is made from a series of the same aluminium poles used to construct the dam. Whilst at Sieiddá the poles stand still, a physical barrier preventing the fish from moving through; here, in the exhibition space, the poles are in motion, fostering a speculative imaginary by opening a way for the salmon to swim free.

Experiments on Extinction
A silent movie - 8mm film 
On 7th July 2025, people from the Deatnu River valley community and management from the Norwegian Environment Agency and Norwegian Veterinary Institute were invited by Ellos Deatnu to participate in a dialogue on salmon well-being. The meeting took place near the Sieiddá Dam, newly constructed in 2025 to prevent pink salmon from entering the Deatnu River.