The Kunsthalle Mainz is presenting the first solo exhibition by Britta Marakatt-Labba in the German-speaking world. Around 60 textile works provide a concentrated insight into the work of one of Northern Scandinavia's most important artistic voices.
Britta Marakatt-Labba, born in Sápmi in 1951, combines art, activism, and cultural memory in her work. For decades, she has been campaigning for the rights of the Sámi people—both as an artist and as co-founder of the Máze Group, which has contributed significantly to the visibility and self-determination of Sámi identity. Marakatt-Labba gained international recognition at the latest with her participation in documenta 14.
Britta Marakatt-Labba – Stitched Tracks, Garjját | The Crows 1981, hand embroidery on linen, 41 × 102 cm. © Courtesy of the artist and KORO – Public Art Norway, Oslo
At the heart of her work are finely embroidered, narrative textiles that tell of the cosmology, traditions, and habitat of the Sámi people. Movement, nature, and the close relationship between humans, animals, and the environment shape these visual worlds, as do current issues such as ecological destruction, extractivism, and the displacement of indigenous ways of life. Thousands of precisely placed stitches create fragile, silent narrative spaces in which landscape, memory, and resistance are interwoven.
The exhibition reveals how Marakatt-Labba uses fabric as a medium for reflection: as a place for questions about belonging, responsibility, and survival in a vulnerable world. Her works impress with their formal clarity, narrative depth, and an extraordinary sense of pictorial space, rhythm, and silence.
January 30 to July 26, 2026
