STOCKHOLM.- The exhibition Our Stories brings together two prominent Sámi artists: Britta Marakatt-Labba and Tomas Colbengtson.

With Sápmi, the Sámi experience, and the relationship to land, history, and identity as central starting points, they approach storytelling in vastly different ways. Through two distinct artistic languages, they portray experiences that move between the personal and the collective, between memory and the contemporary.

For Galleri Helle Knudsen, the exhibition is also a continuation of a long-standing relationship with both artists. Britta Marakatt-Labba and Tomas Colbengtson have previously exhibited at the gallery, both in solo exhibitions and together. Their collaborations include the duo exhibitions Tracks in Snow After Reindeer Migration (2016) and Dawn (2018). Marakatt-Labba returned to the gallery with the solo exhibition Echoes of the Underground in 2025, and that same year Colbengtson presented his third solo exhibition at the gallery, Soejvene – Shadows.

Britta Marakatt-Labba (b. 1951, Idivuoma) often works with understated and poetic storytelling. With needle and thread, she creates images where everyday scenes, historical events, mythology, and political events can coexist. Her embroideries encompass both the small and the grand – a human, an animal, a landscape – while simultaneously telling of generations of Sámi experience. Nature is ever-present, as is the question of what happens when it changes or is threatened.

Tomas Colbengtson (b. 1957, Björkvattnet, Tärnaby) works with memory, history, and issues of repatriation and decolonization. His art stems from his own experiences and from traditional Sámi craftsmanship, through which knowledge and stories have been passed down through generations. In his works, the relationship with nature and the idea that all living things have a spiritual dimension recur. At the same time, he highlights how Sámi objects and cultural heritage have long been collected by museums and the church. For Colbengtson, art becomes a way to reclaim and pass on what has been lost, but also to reflect on how a more just and democratic society can be formed.

Both artists have received significant international attention in recent years and are represented in the collections of institutions such as Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, and the British Museum in London. Recently, works by both Britta Marakatt-Labba and Tomas Colbengtson have also been acquired by the Tate Collection in London.

Marakatt-Labba participated in documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens in 2017 and in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, in 2022. In 2024, her major exhibition Needle-Sharp Stitches was presented at Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo. The following year, her work was presented at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in the exhibition Where Each Stitch Breathes. Colbengtson was awarded the prestigious Queen Sonja Print Award in 2024, and in 2025–2026 his largest solo exhibition to date, Soejvene, was presented at Västerbottens Museum.