Today there are about 300 million people who belong to some aboriginals. We are spread in about 5 000 different groups, living in 70 countries. We are 4 % of the population of the world but between 70 - 80 % of the cultural variety.

Every year groups from the aboriginals disappear. Every day we have to fight to keep our areas and create possibilities to continue living the life we always have done and wanted for ourselves. The surrounding and dominating societies are pressing us and so the possibilities for us, the indigenous peoples of the world, to save and preserve our cultural individualities.

With this exhibition "Áhkku - I honour us", I want to show a small part of the cultural diversity among the aboriginals and ethnical minorities of the world.

I want to remind of the destiny that the Indians in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost part of South America, suffered from. Today only fragments are left of the Indian tribes Yamanes and Kaweshkar. The third big tribe, Selk´nam, is since the middle of the 80th exterminated.

I also want to honour my áhkku, which means grandmother in north Sami. Kiepja, the last Selk´nam shaman, died 1966 and I connect her with áhkku - two strong women from opposite sides of the world with knowledge and skills in nature medicine.

The exhibition does not answer questions about facts. The purpose is to evoke feelings, to stimulate senses and to convey the message: We exist! We deserve living as a complement to and a counterbalance to the big society.

I also want to evoke the question: When will the UN declaration on Human Rights involve everyone?