Anders Sunna


Börje Karl Anders Sunna is a Swedish Sámi artist known for incorporating a strong political point of view into his artwork.
Sunna was born in the Jukkasjärvi parish of Kiruna, Norrbotten County, Sweden. He grew up in a reindeer herding family in near the border of Finland and was educated at Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå and the Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Nowadays he lives in Jokkmokk, Sweden.
Sunna's art is political, often focusing on Sámi history and his family's long-standing conflict with the county administrative board's reindeer husbandry delegation. In his work, Sunna uses thick layers of color, graffiti techniques, collage, and prints with motifs depicting oppression of the Sámi, including forced relocations and photographs from the Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology. In 2013, Sunna drew criticism from some Sámi for his use of the Sámi flag as a canvas for a graffiti-style painting of a skull-faced Sámi man holding an AK-47.
In addition to painting, Sunna works with larger installations. In some exhibitions, he collaborates with the artist and photographer Michiel Brouwer.
Sunna co-directed with Inga-Wiktoria Påve the 2017 animated short film Morit Elena Morit!, which won the Jane Glassco Award for Emerging Talent at the 2017 imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto and Best Indigenous Short Film award at the 2018 in Finland.
Some of Sunna's art is on public display at the Gällivare District courthouse, after being purchased by the in 2015. Sunna is one of the artists representing Sápmi in the Nordic pavilion during the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Selected exhibitions

A partial list of solo and group exhibitions featuring Sunna's work.