Indigenous artist Aqui Thami at Tjállegoahte - Sámi writers association

19:00, Friday February 6: Inauguration and online conversation with the artist

Native Plants and Female Solidarity: Prints by Aqui Thami

Together with Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna, Tjállegoahte is presenting the exhibition Native Plants and Female Solidarity: Prints by Aqui Thami. The graphic works gathered in this exhibition introduce Aqui Thami, a young artist from the Himalayas. For Thami, the histories of her land, her struggles, and her long engagement with feminist solidarity and DIY culture are the intertwined narratives that reach beyond her native Himalayan region. The exhibition brings together eleven prints from two ongoing series, Words Are Weapons and Smell the Flowers. The latter focuses on native Himalayan plants—those long present in the land yet often reshaped through cultivation and colonial histories.

Aqui Thami belongs to the Thangmi and Kiratima Indigenous peoples of the Himalayas. Being born on a tea plantation in Darjeeling and growing up under difficult circumstances, she left home early and moved to Mumbai. While reflecting on her lived experience as an Indigenous woman from a marginalized background, Thami began to create projects and spaces where art could be woven into activism and community-building. For the artist, the most important is to create space for those who are underrepresented or unsafe.

Aqui Thami has participated in international residencies, including the V&A Research Institute (VARI, London) and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. In 2024, she held a residency at Kin Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the exhibition In the Footsteps of the Stars: Britta Marakatt-Labba’s Embroidered Worlds. She is currently based in Amsterdam.

Image 1: Aqui Thami, Joy as Resistance
Image 2: Aqui Thami, Blue Poppy
Image 3: Aqui Thami, Resisters