a new initiative which it hopes will result in more work by Indigenous artists entering its collection.
The programme launches with a four-year commitment from the AKO Foundation, which was established by Norwegian philanthropist Nicolai Tangen, founder of AKO Capital.
The first works to be acquired through the new fund will be Outi Pieski’s woven hanging installation Guržot ja guovssat / Spell on You! 2020 and its companion piece Skábmavuođđu / Spell on Me! 2024 created during her residency at Porthmeor Studios in Cornwall.
The acquisition will mark the first time a Sámi artist has entered the collection, coinciding with Pieski’s exhibition at Tate St Ives where the works are currently on display.
Similar projects to research, collect and display the work of artists from other Indigenous communities will follow, including in South Asia, Oceania and the Americas, it said, to “further Tate’s commitment to championing art in all its diversity”.
Its Director Karin Hindsbo added: “Tate has long been dedicated to expanding the canon of art history and we can now take that work even further.
“I’m particularly delighted that Sámi and Inuit artists from Northern Europe – an area of artistic practice very close to my heart – will soon be represented in Tate’s ever-more-diverse international collection for the first time.”
