Britta Marakatt-Labba: In the Footsteps of the Stars

In Britta Marakatt-Labba’s 24-meter-long embroidery Historjá (History) from 2004–07, Sámi history, since times immemorial, unfolds across the eight seasons high above the Arctic circle. The exhibition In the Footsteps of the Stars: The Embroidered Worlds of Britta Marakatt-Labba is the artist’s largest retrospective in both Sápmi and Sweden with a rich and poetic narrative about the cultural and territorial struggles of the Sámi, mainland Europe’s only indigenous people.

For half a century, Britta Marakatt-Labba, born in Ađevuopmi/Idivuoma and based in Badje Sohppar/Övre Soppero, both located in Giron/Kiruna Municipality, has been one of Sápmi’s most prominent artists. With thousands of stitches, appliqués, dyes, and just some bare linen, Marakatt-Labba depicts daily activities and political episodes, historical events, and mythological scenes. She turns Sápmi into a horizon from where it is possible to gaze out upon the rest of the world. It is, after all, in the Arctic that many of the major issues of our time are playing out: the climate crisis is more palpable here, and the extraction of raw materials is increasing drastically as part of the socalled green transition, which infringes upon the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and ways of living. Throughout, she has challenged conventional notions of “the center” and “periphery” and of what is essential and worth striving for, not only for herself as a person and artist but also for art as a whole.

The exhibition includes more than seventy works produced over the course of five decades. The acclaimed work Historjá (2004–07) is included in the exhibition and will be shown in the lobby of the city hall of Giron. Originally commissioned for UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Romsa/Tromsö, the epic embroidery garnered a great deal of attention in connection with the Documenta 14 exhibition in Kassel (2017). Since then, her work can be found in a wide range of art institutions beyond Sápmi and Northern Fennoscandia.

As part of the exhibition, a series of lectures and talks have been arranged based on the themes and questions found in Britta Marakatt-Labba’s work. Among the topics that will be included are how reindeer husbandry is affected by windmill farms and climate change as well as the impact of the mining industry on Sámi life. The series was conceived by Umeå-based investigative journalist and writer, Arne Müller, and realized in collaboration with ABF, the Workers’ Educational Association and Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus in Stockholm, from where it will also be streamed.

Art works by Britta Marakatt-Labba which are permanently on display in the region of Norrbotten will be highlighted through presentations and walking tours in Jiellevárre/Gällivare, Jåhkåmåhkke/Jokkmokk, and Julevu/Luleå. In collaboration with Gällivare Kulturmuseum, Folkets hus och parker, Ajtte—Svenskt fjäll—och samemuseum, Jokkmokks kommun och Region Norrbotten.

The exhibition was first initiated by The National Museum, Oslo; where it was shown during the spring and summer of 2024, in collaboration with Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Giron/Kiruna and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibition at Kin is a revised version of this exhibition.

At the same time, The Polar Silk Road, will be on view, an installation by artists Köken Ergun and Sasha Azanova about the melting ice of the Arctic and the hunt for new transport routes between China and Europe. Selected works from the collection will also be on display, among others by Hans Ragnar Mathisen, Karin Keisu and Josse Thuresson, and Cooking Sections.

Kin Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 2018 and is located inside the city hall of Giron/Kiruna. The museum is showing and collecting art with the Arctic region as a starting point. Being both a municipal and a regional museum, following the dictum of “dig where you stand,” Kin is interweaving the local, the regional, the national, and the international. Kin is the only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art in Sweden, and one of the northernmost art museums in the world.