Britta Marakatt-Labba's Ancient Mother Statue on the Highline

 

Urmodern, by Britta Marakatt-Labba

For anyone in New York on Oct 7 at 12:30-1:30, the Sámi artist Britta Marakatt-Labba will be discussing her sculpture, Urmodern, located on the High Line between Gansevoort and Little West 12th Streets.

Many of us know Marakatt-Labba through her embroidered narratives of Sámi history and other two-dimensional work. Her reknown has only increased over the last years, with one-person shows at the National Gallery in Oslo (2024) and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2025), and she's also been represented in art exhibits in the U.S., in connection with other Arctic and Sámi artists. 

I only recently heard that she has a sculpture on the Highline in New York, at least until March of 2026, and that it is meant to represent a female deity. Here's the text from the announcement for her talk: 

 "For the High Line, Marakatt-Labba presents Urmodern, which translates to “primordial mother.” Sámi mythology is based on the belief 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. Through this lens, Urmodern serves as a representation of these female deities. The boulder-like base of the work is made of granite, topped with the head of the goddess rendered in bronze. Marakatt-Labba’s contribution to the High Line underscores the importance of environmental stewardship on a global stage, engaging audiences in critical dialogues about Indigenous rights and feminism."

Katarina Barruk at the BBC Proms

Katarina Barruk, 2025

On August 31, 2025 Sámi vocal artist Katarina Barruk performed in concert with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra at the BBC Proms festival at London's Royal Albert Hall. It was a history-making event, given that she was the first Sámi performer ever to participate in the Proms. I read about this in the Barents Observer, which has a link to a broadcast from Radio Sweden, where she’s interviewed (in English). Barruk’s Sámi identity wasn’t the only thing notable about the event. Barruk sings and joiks in the Ume Sámi language, which is considered extinct in Norway and is severely endangered in Sweden. It was traditionally spoken around the Ume River in central Sweden, around towns such as Sorsele, Lycksele, Arvidsjaur, and Storuman, where Katarina Barruk was raised. Her father, one of only a handful of people to still speak Ume Sámi, is a language consultant and teacher whose work involves documenting and rivitalizing the language; in 2018 he published the first Ume Sámi-Swedish dictionary.

Katarina Barruk herself has been a language-immersion teacher as well as a musician; now she mainly concentrates on her work as a singer, appearing internationally and releasing videos and singles. Like another Sámi vocalist and activist, Sara Ajnakk, who I’ve written about before on this blog and who did not grow up speaking Ume Sámi but has painstakingly learned it and who writes many of her songs in it, Barruk has become a spokesperson for Ume Sámi. Much of the coverage of Barruk’s performance at the Proms mentioned the Ume language.

It wasn’t the first time that Ume Sámi was in the news in England—I was able to find an article in the Guardian from 2014, “Reindeer herders, an app and the fight to save a language,” which gives a good overview of the language and the efforts to revitalize it. In the article, Katarina is mentioned as a “young, passionate advocate for access to language education,” who is “currently recording her first album using Ume Sami lyrics and influences from the traditional Sami Yoik.”