Gallery Helle Knudsen is pleased to announce that the Astrup Fearnley Museum have acquired a large scale sculpture by the Sámi artsist Britta Marakatt-Labba: Urmodern/Primordial Mother, bronze och granite, 224 × 112 × 102 cm, 2024
Urmodern/Promordial Mother is rooted in the belief within Sámi mythology that every stone, plant, and body of water has its own spirit. It teaches that the cosmos and the earth were created and are protected by goddesses, emphasizing the pivotal role of women in Sámi culture. The sculpture embodies this primordial force through a granite base that supports the goddess’s head in bronze—a union of earth, matter, and spiritual presence—where the Primordial Mother emerges as a representation of these female deities.
The work was installed on High Line in April 2025, commissioned by curator Cecilia Alemani, who also curated the main exhibition The Milk of Dreams at the Venice Biennale 2022, where Britta Marakatt-Labba participated. The installation in New York has now concluded, and the work has been acquired by the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo.
The Astrup Fearnley Museum, founded in 1993, is one of the leading museums for contemporary art in the Nordic region and manages an extensive international collection. The museum continuously presents exhibitions featuring both works fromits collection and new productions by artists from around the world.
Britta Marakatt-Labba, born in 1951 into a reindeer-herding family in Lainovuoma Sámi community, is one of Sweden’s most significant contemporary artists, known for her narrative visual language spanning embroidery, installation, and sculpture. Her international breakthrough came with the 24-meter-long embroidery Historjá, shown at documenta 14, and has been followed by a number of acclaimed exhibitions in Sweden and internationally. In 2025, both EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki and the Tate Collection in London acquired works by Marakatt-Labba.
She is currently featured in the solo exhibition Stitched Tracks at Kunsthalle Mainz, as well as in the group exhibition We Who Remain at Kiasma.
Photo: Britta Marakatt-Labba, The Primordial Mother, 2025. A High Line Commission. On view April 2025 – March 2026. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of the High Line.
Photo: Britta Marakatt-Labba in Conversation with Cecilia Alemani. Presented by the High Line on October 7, 2025. Photo by Liz Divine. Courtesy of the High Line.