Art from a Suitcase

Art from a Suitcase
MMC KIBLA/KiBela: 23 January–14 March 2026
artKIT: 23 January–7 March 2026

The exhibition Art from a Suitcase opens on Friday, 23 January 2026, at 6 p.m. at the artKIT exhibition space, followed by opening at 7 p.m. at MMC KIBLA and at the KiBela, space for art.

The exhibition features contemporary practices by artists who live in or originate from countries of the Global South, and whose works, for the most part, can fit into a suitcase. The invited artists brought their works as luggage, later unpacking their suitcases and handing the works over for exhibition. Many of these artists are being presented in Europe for the first time.

The artists are from, or have origins in, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Turkey, and Germany. Their works employ a wide range of techniques and materials, including waste, plastic, metal, found objects, paper, and textiles, and encompass drawings, paintings, sculptures, (kinetic) objects, embroidery, installations, photographs, and artists’ books. The exhibition features artworks that are both lightweight and materially economical, as well as representative of local specificities, created using techniques such as collage, assemblage of found street materials, patching, stitching, and assemblage. The works are both highly urban and traditional, as the artists engage with the cultures in which they live or from which they have migrated, while their original artistic impulse endures in new environments.

Artists from Ghana use textiles to address the country’s colonial and postcolonial realities, while artists from Ethiopia use textiles as a symbol of self-sufficiency and pride in national tradition. The artist from Turkey uses textiles to express subtle social relations and the poetic narratives of her culture, while the artist from Guatemala looks back to the textile tradition of Mayan culture through collaboration between male and female roles.

The project is curated by Goran Tomčić and Jerica Ziherl and features works by Kirubel Melke (Ethiopia), Dariwos Hailemichael (Ethiopia), Mewded Dagnachew (Ethiopia), Tewodros Bekele (Ethiopia), Birhanu Manaye (Ethiopia), Abel Beyene Disasa (Ethiopia), Mahilet Afework (Ethiopia), Dawit Tamrat (Ethiopia), Zelalem Merga (Ethiopia), Michael Tsegaye (Ethiopia), Dereje Shiferaw (Ethiopia), Cecilia Lamptey-Botchway (Ghana/USA), Engdaget Legesse Amede (Ethiopia/Germany), Henok Getachew (Ethiopia/Germany), Frederick Bamfo (Ghana), Patrick Tagoe-Turkson (Ghana), Quique Lee (Guatemala), Hale Ekinci (Turkey/USA), Emmanuel Boateng (Ghana/United Kingdom), and Klaus Mertens (Germany).

The exhibition Art from a Suitcase highlights how recognizable the art world has become today in its global expression, and how the local specificities of distant countries are increasingly present and accessible across the contemporary world, despite its continued division into the “Global South” and the “Global North”. This division reflects an imperial mindset and exposes the colonial practices of the “Collective West”, which have become especially visible in recent years through the production of global conflicts and the fueling of wars in regions where geopolitical control and the appropriation of natural resources remain at stake. Within this logic, the lives of others are framed as an “acceptable sacrifice” in the pursuit of strategic goals, the environment is treated as “collateral damage”, and devastated countries are reduced to opportunities for investment and new forms of domination.

The project was developed in collaboration with the Lapidarium Museum in Novigrad, Istria, Croatia.

MMC KIBLA/KiBela, Ulica kneza Koclja 9, Maribor
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

artKIT, Glavni trg 14, Maribor
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday from 3 to 7 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.