Embroidery by Britta Marakatt-Labba

Britta Marakatt-Labba, Mátki II (The Journey II) , 1989/2021 Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet Bildupphovsrätt 2024

Britta Marakatt-Labba

14.6 – 9.11 2025

Stockholm

For more than forty years, Britta Marakatt-Labba has highlighted Sámi culture and history in embroideries, graphic art, installations and sculptures. Her embroidered landscapes depict Sámi traditions and everyday life, but also colonialist abuse and a nature threatened by exploitation.

Britta Marakatt-Labba (b. 1951 in Idivuoma, Sápmi, Sweden) was politically active early on. During the early 1980s, she participated in the fight against the expansion of the Alta River, and her social commitment still plays an important role in her art. Her work is also a significant inspiration for new generations fighting for the environment and Sámi rights.

The 24-metre-long embroidery Historjá (2003–2007) is a central work in the exhibition. Drawing with stitches, Marakatt-Labba depicts the Sámi’s history, religion and everyday life, and how the material world coexists with the mythological.

The exhibition has been initiated by the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and is a collaboration with Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Moderna Museet’s exhibition is a reworked version made in close collaboration with the artist herself.