Marimekko has introduced new artworks by Danish textile designer Vibeke Rohland.
Rohland served as Marimekko’s Artist in Residence for over a year, reactivating a long-standing tradition of an artist working in Marimekko’s printing factory for an extended period. This tradition has been at the heart of the brand since 1951.
Rohland began her work at Marimekko’s textile printing factory in Helsinki in January 2024, immersing herself in a space that is connected to the brand’s global headquarters.
With her arrival, Marimekko revived hand‑printing methods as part of the design process, which allowed Rohland to explore colour, material, and motif from new perspectives.
“Before Vibeke began her work as Marimekko’s Artist in residence, we had to undertake extensive preparation. It had been nearly two decades since hand‑printing was last practised in our textile printing factory,” said Rebekka Bay, Marimekko’s Creative Director.
“Reintroducing this craft required both technical and spatial rethinking. For example, we created small flatbed printing screens and built a custom hand‑printing table tailored specifically to Vibeke’s working preferences.”
Working side by side with Marimekko’s design team, artwork specialists, and printing factory artisans, Rohland developed a series of prints rooted in experimentation and curiosity. She became particularly captivated by Marimekko’s reactive dyes, an essential part in creating the brand’s signature overlapping colours.
Rohland said that working with reactive dyes in the printing factory environment, on a printing table made specifically for her use, gave her work a new kind of freedom as she did not have to contend with mixing the dyes or be troubled by steaming, washing and so on.
“All of this allowed me to work on a larger scale on all levels, with the essence being printing and shaping form and colour directly on the fabric”, said Rohland.
For Marimekko, the residency provided an opportunity to bridge the artistic spontaneity of hand printing with the precision of contemporary industrial production.
Rohland’s finalised sketches were fully digitised, prompting Marimekko’s design and artworks teams to develop new approaches to preserving the nuance of hand printing expression: retaining the original scale of motifs, authentic colour relationships, and the rhythm of the artist’s hand.
A selection of the prints created by Vibeke Rohland during her residency will appear in Marimekko’s Fall/Winter ready‑to‑wear collection, available from September.
