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How much of who you are is defined by your heritage?
Artist Olof Marsja draws on his Sámi heritage, Europe’s only officially recognised indigenous people. Through his sculptures, installations and a deeply poetic approach, Marsja delves into his background. He relates this complex history to contemporary times and challenges.
Reconnecting with one’s heritage and identity can be daunting, especially when a culture has been oppressed and at times not passed from generation to generation. Recognised as one of Sweden’s national minorities, the Sámi people have endured a long history of abuse, racism and cultural oppression, only receiving official recognition from the Parliament in 1977. The oppression and segregationist policies still persist today.
For Marsja, art is a means of reclaiming cultural memory and taking back control of the narrative. His work confronts social injustices and transforms a forgotten past into a living present.
The artist employs ‘assemblage’ as the primary technique in his sculptures. Beyond the mixing of materials, this method symbolises the blending of various identities.
In playful and serious ways, Marsja’s sculptures touch on themes of ‘in-betweenness’ and he brings hybrid creatures to life that blur the lines between fine art and Duodji (Sámi craft), indigenous knowledge, fantasy, reality, human and animal. Through the symbols they carry, the artist tells stories about life and ancient myths.
Olof Marsja works with sculptural expressions that analyse and blend uncannily the ultra modern contemporary digital reality and pop culture with history and traditions connected to his Sámi heritage and Duodji (Sámi craft). Crafts and materials are central in Marsja’s research and his works are deeply marked by the plurality of practical knowledge and references that characterise the hybrid forms with which he seriously and humorously analyses questions of history, the contemporary world and identity.
Marsja holds a BFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts & Design in Stockholm (2017) and was a recipient of the Stena Foundation Culture Scholarship in 2023 and the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Stipend in 2019.
He has recently exhibited at Örebro Konsthall (Örebro, 2025), Gammel Strand (Copenhagen, 2024), Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Buffalo, 2024), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki, 2024), Gothenburg Museum of Art (2023), NEVVEN (Bologna, 2024 and Gothenburg, 2021), Göteborgs Konsthall (2023 and 2020), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, 2022), Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale (2022), Luleå Biennial (2022 and 2018), The Sámi Center for Contemporary Art (Karasjok, 2021), Röhsska Museet (Gothenburg, 2021), and Bonniers Konsthall (Stockholm, 2019) among others.
Marsja lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Boekhorststraat 125
2512 CN The Hague
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 70 212 58 60
(10am – 6pm Mon – Fri)
Opening times during exhibitions:
(Check our Program)
Thursday: 13:00 – 21:00
Friday: 13:00 – 18:00
Saturday: 13:00 – 18:00
Sunday: 13:00 – 18:00
Special days:
Easter (Sun 20-4-2025): Closed
Pentecost (Sun 8-6-2025): Closed
Christmas (25-12-2025 – 1-1-2026): Closed
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