BIOGRAPHY

Once upon a time, was a 7 years boy, called Alan Borvo, from French Brittany who turned over the pages of an old dictionary when he felt suddenly struck by an engraving showing a group of Lapps (we still didn't day "the Sámit") in front of their hut. This discovery will give a new sense in his life. He did it in 1953 when he got 20, itch-hiking up to the Norwegian Finnmark where he met his first nomadic Lapps. The year after, still itch-hiking, he comes back to Lappland for making a report about the Skolt, a Russian Lapp tribe which the last wars have pushed to northern Finnland. Having then undertaken ethnologic studies, he will spend a full winter under the tent of a reindeer-breeders’ family. The outside temperature reaches 42°C ! His photo camera does not work anymore, but himself stands fast

During his voyage, Alan Borvo made up a good Sámit selection tools,accessories and clothes which was concencrated to many Sámit culture exhibitions in France and Europe.

Alone during his personal visit to the "Fjellfinner" with Sámit teachers, he also collected about 120 paintings of children from Polmak, Karasjok, Kautokeino and Karesuando. Till now it is unknown why the last generation of nomades shifted with the pulkas and lavvus at each level.This unique collection without a doubt the most important witness and most precious of their daily life, with all sincerity to the object of the child. Nobody was mistaken, not more the French public, what they discovered in Paris, was the Sámit themselves. With effect, the inititative of Berit Åse Johansen and the museum of Karasjok, the Samit children in the 1950ties got into their fifties, they rediscover with emotion which we can imagine with a clear vision they had the universeof their childhood. Equally, on this occassion, finding this stranger visit their school, sitting and talking to them inbroken "sámegiella" broke the ice!! For him they talked about their daily life with pictures, sincere and upsetting, and also their stories and aspirations without a moment of doubt in participating and becoming a irreplaceable "tresure of the minds collection".

Today Alan has gone. The countless witnesses which his companion Angélina received, comes from the ancestral grounds of the "Samit" well said the child who dreamed before the picture of the old dictionary became a "Sami" himself, thinking he has been welcomed by merit in "Saivoaimo" by the ancient Sámit.

"Alan with Jovna Sammo, his god-son from Karajosk"

EXTRACT VIDEO

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Film by Nils John Porsanger

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