Artist in residence: Vibeke Rohland
Marimekko launched the Artist in residence program as a direct echo of how the we worked with artists in the 1950s and 60s. The first artist in the program is Danish textile artist Vibeke Rohland, whose practice spans more than four decades in textile art and printmaking. At the heart of the collaboration is the printing factory in Helsinki, where artists work side by side with the mill staff, shaping new work in close conversation with the people who make it.
Marimekko launched the Artist in residence program as a direct echo of how the we worked with artists in the 1950s and 60s. The first artist in the program is Danish textile artist Vibeke Rohland, whose practice spans more than four decades in textile art and printmaking. At the heart of the collaboration is the printing factory in Helsinki, where artists work side by side with the mill staff, shaping new work in close conversation with the people who make it.
Vibeke was born in 1957 in Gladsaxe-Søborg outside Copenhagen. As a child, she took up embroidery, knitting and crochet because she was fascinated with the textures and colors created by the thread and the yarn. Later she would study art history at the University of Copenhagen and textile design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1986.
At Marimekko, Vibeke approached the process as a continuous negotiation. Together with the printing team, she explored how repetition could shift through subtle variation, where each pass of color and each adjustment builds a rhythm that is never quite the same twice. The process called for openness, as changes in temperature, pigment or timing could alter the result.
Ten new Marimekko prints
The first collaboration resulted in a series of ten prints, featured in the Marimekko Fall/Winter 2026 collection as part of a special guest design capsule. Some of the prints are also featured in Marimekko’s home collection of the season.
