Collection Presentation 6

The sixth collection presentation since 2024 consists of twenty-four works by artists from both near and far, all of which have previously been exhibited at Kin Museum of Contemporary Art. The presentation revolves around landscape, cultural memory, movement, and belonging.

Britta Marakatt-Labba’s acclaimed embroideries and graphic works deal with something highly relevant in Giron/Kiruna: Sámi history, mythology, and the contemporary challenges facing Sápmi. The eight panel paintings by Matts Leiderstam tell another local story: that of Prince Eugen’s much-discussed altarpiece from 1912 and the relocation of Kiruna Church in the summer of 2025. What role can an altarpiece without Christian symbols or biblical figures play, and what do sunlight and global warming mean for the church and the surrounding landscape?

Keviselie/Elle-Hánsa/Hans Ragnar Mathisen’s norm-critical map of the South Sámi region enters into dialogue with another striking cartographic image: the “Polar Silk Road” traversing the Arctic Ocean in the banner by Köken Ergun and Sasha Azanova. Through this new route—made possible by climate change—China seeks to establish a faster transportation corridor to and from Europe.

A figure cloaked in a mantle of feathers moves through an entirely different landscape: the tropical forests of Bahia in the video Feather by Feather: The Cloak in Motion by Indigenous artist and activist Glicéria Tupinambá and her kin. Together with members of her community, she has revived the nearly forgotten knowledge involved in creating the magnificent feather cloaks of the Tupinambá people and is helping to return them to their homeland.

The experiences of the war in Ukraine resonate throughout Alexandra Ravska’s paintings, created during her residency at Konstnärernas Kollektivverkstad in Luleå in early 2023.

Olivia Plender’s pencil drawings portray the women who founded and ran the Women Citizens’ School at Fogelstad from 1925 to 1954—a unique educational experiment created by women and for women from all parts of society, enabling women in Sweden to “practice citizenship” after gaining the right to vote in 1921.

Since the opening of Kin in 2018, the museum has built a collection of more than 200 artworks. The collection includes painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, installation, video, and performance.

Kin expands its collection through acquisitions and donations of works that have been presented as part of the museum’s program or created by artists with whom the museum has collaborated—or will collaborate in the future. The aim is to create a collection that reflects and documents the museum’s activities and all their many facets. As a result, the collection includes works by local, regional, national, and international artists.

Image 1: Alexandra Ravskaya: Air Raid Warning
Image 2: Matts Leiderstam: The sun picture
Image 3: Köken Ergun, Sasha Azanova: Polar Silk Road