Britta Marakatt-Labba, Deddon (Nightmare), 1984 Photo: Hans-Olof Utsi/Galleri Helle Knudsen © Britta Marakatt-Labba
Bildupphovsrätt 2025
Britta Marakatt-Labba
Where Each Stitch Breathes/Juohke sákkaldat vuoigŋá
14.6 – 9.11 2025
Stockholm
Opens in 3 days
To embroider is to engage in an aesthetic of deliberate slowness. It is a voyage in time and space where each stitch breathes experience and insights, forming narratives. – Britta Marakatt-Labba
For almost fifty years, Britta Marakatt-Labba has highlighted Sámi culture, history and struggle in embroideries, graphic works, installations and sculptures. Her major international breakthrough came with the 24-metre-long work “Historjá”, an epic embroidery which is the central work of the exhibition, and has been compared to the Bayeux Tapestry.
Against backdrops of mountain landscapes and snow-covered expanses, Britta Marakatt-Labba depicts a way of life in which the spiritual world is ever-present – woven into everyday scenes, historical events, accounts of state oppression, and reflections on a threatened natural environment.
BRITTA MARAKATT-LABBA – WHERE EACH STITCH BREATHES
“Where Each Stitch Breathes/Juohke sákkaldat vuoigŋá” includes around sixty of Britta Marakatt-Labba’s works from 1968 to the present day. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Britta Marakatt-Labba’s own description of working with the embroidered works: in the time-consuming work process, it is reflection and experience that imbue each new stitch with meaning and significance.
In the extensive embroidery “Historjá” (2003–2007) the scenes, which consist of hundreds of thousands of small stitches on linen, tell the story of the Sámi people’s existence, history and worldview. But also of resistance. By highlighting, among other things, the Kautokeino rebellion of 1852, Britta Marakatt-Labba highlights an event that is today considered an important turning point in the fight for Sámi rights and political independence.
In the spring of 2025, the art magazine ArtNews named “Historjá” one of the most important works of art of the century.
Britta Marakatt-Labba
Britta Marakatt-Labba sággojuvvon muitalusat govvidit sámi eallima ja árgabeaivvi, ja maiddái stáhtalaš vearredaguid ja birrasa man …
Juohke sákkaldat vuoigŋá
Preview: Britta Marakatt-Labba
For almost fifty years, Britta Marakatt-Labba has depicted Sámi culture, history, and resilience through her art. Join us for the opening of the …
Preview: Britta Marakatt-Labba
Introduction: Britta Marakatt-Labba
Learn more about the exhibition “Britta Marakatt-Labba – Where Each Stitch Breathes/Juohke sákkaldat vuoigŋá” with Hanna Horsberg Hansen, a …
Introduction: Britta Marakatt-Labba
Bildupphovsrätt 2025
Politically engaged early on
Early on, Britta Marakatt-Labba became politically engaged. As a member in the artist collective Mázejoavku (the Masi group), she participated, among other things, in the fight against the expansion of the Alta River in the late 1970s and early 1980s, an event she also depicted in the famous work “Garjját” (The Crows, 1981).
Britta Marakatt-Labba’s great social commitment still plays an important role in her artistic work today, and her art is a significant inspiration for new generations’ fight for the environment and Sámi rights.
Bildupphovsrätt 2025
BRITTA MARAKATT-LABBA:
Britta Marakatt-Labba was born in 1951 in Idivuoma, on the Swedish side of Sápmi, and currently lives and works in Övre Soppero, in the municipality of Kiruna. She grew up in a reindeer-herding family with North Sámi as her mother tongue and learned Swedish as her fourth language, after Meänkieli and Norwegian. After studying at Sunderby Folk High School outside Luleå and at the Academy of Design and Crafts (HDK) in Gothenburg, Marakatt-Labba returned to her home region in the late 1970s.
Britta Marakatt-Labba’s art has been in public and regional collections in the Nordic countries since the 1980s. Her major international breakthrough came in 2017 at Documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany. Since then, her art has attracted growing international interest and is exhibited around the world.
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“Where Each Stitch Breathes/Juohke sákkaldat vuoigŋá” at Moderna Museet is the result of a close collaboration between Britta Marakatt-Labba and the curator Matilda Olof-Ors. It is a revised version of the exhibition ”Moving the needle”, which was produced by and shown at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (15 March–25 August 2024) and shown in another version, “In the Footsteps of the Stars”, at the Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna (23 October 2024–16 March 2025).
The exhibition is supported by:
Our warm thanks to Britta Marakatt-Labba Exhibition Circle and the donors:
Veronica and Lars Bane
Kerstin and Johan Hessius
Pontus Bonnier
Mari and Thomas Eldered
Agneta and Bo Philipson
