Student projects

In a site-specific sculptural intervention, artist Matilda Lövgren makes her mark on shiny surfaces with two new artworks that seep into the architecture of Accelerator. The Strangest Longing in a Lover is presented by the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art, in partnership with Accelerator, and is curated by Tyra Wihl.

To leave an imprint is to mark a surface by pressing something hard into it, leaving a lasting impression. There are physical imprints, those that indicate the previous presence of a body, such as footsteps, fingerprints, bruises, or wrinkled sheets in an unmade bed. An imprint can also be psychological, the process of fixing something firmly in someone’s memory. It is in this vein that Lövgren’s artworks interfere with the cloakroom and public bathroom at Accelerator; an attempt to connect with herself and with you.  

Lövgren’s practice involves an ongoing process of sourcing and collecting materials from her own body, including hair, saliva and sebum. Here, her fascination with self-referentiality is intertwined with the myth of Narcissus, who pined for and desperately pursued his own image as it appeared before him in the reflective surface of a spring. As Narcissus leans over the pond, refusing to break eye contact, Lövgren’s artworks speak of a similar need to examine what appears in the reflection. 

This project is curated in relation to Accelerator’s ongoing exhibition Vera Was Here, and the conceptual bridge to it is twofold. Lövgren experiments with the theme of indexical representation in her own visceral way, rendering the artworks a material trace of her DNA. Additionally, like Bitsy Knox’s series of artworks referencing the veil of Saint Veronica, this project is grounded in a myth that, in turn, explores the difficult relationship between the subject and his image. 

Exhibition: 21 January – 29 January
Opening: Wednesday, 21 January
Time: 17:30 – 20:00 

Free entry, no registration necessary. 

On the same evening, Accelerator hosts a curator-led tour of the exhibitions Gravity, Be My Friend and Vera Was Here.

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Artworks
Älskar, älskar inte 
Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, 
à la folie, pas du tout (2025)   
Mirror, sebum, Nivea cream 

Still life lingers (2025)
Silicone, human hair, still life installation 

Credits
Artist: Matilda Lövgren
Curator: Tyra Wihl 
Graphic design: Emma Annell
Supervisors: Nina Øverli and Robin McGinley

Occupied is a curatorial project and event curated by Hannah Ingvoldstad and developed in connection to Lisa Tan’s exhibition Dodge and/or Burn. The project presented the commissioned work flisbelagt tilfluktsrom (tiled harbour) by LNUA on 25 October. The work will be on view until 15 November as a part of Accelerator’s public programme.

Occupied came to fruition through a series of conversations between the curator and artist about the isolating experience of burnout and overworking. In response to these conversations, the artist created the immersive soundscape flisbelagt tilfluktsrom. The series of atmospheric shifts in the soundscape explores the multifaceted relationship to work and bathroom as site.

The bathroom is one of the most intimate spaces of daily life. At the same time, it is often a shared one. The intertwining of the public and private resonates with subjective and societal experience of burnout. In moments of stress, the bathroom often becomes a refuge – a place of rest. The site transforms to a place to cry – to text – to sit. Through the individual exploration of the sound installation, Occupied wants to open the conversation of overwork and rest.

The opening on the 25th invites visitors to explore the soundscape. The site of rest expands to the Accelerator Café – allowing visitors to rest in unity. At 18:30 there will be an introduction by the curator Hannah Ingvoldstad. The café will be open to purchase something to eat or drink.

LNUA (NO) is the moniker of Oslo-based experimental musician and sound artist Luna Storeide. Through her music, LNUA explores the ever-changing nature of life, using sample manipulation and sound synthesis to create sonic landscapes that reflect the fluidity and chaos of our experiences. Drawing inspiration from a diverse range of genres including ambient, noise, and club music, LNUA’s compositions are immersive and engaging, seamlessly blending atmospheric textures with abrasive, high-energy passages.

Free entry, no registration required.

Credits

Artist: LNUA (NO)
Curator: Hannah Ingvoldstad
Mentor: Nina Øverli
Graphic Design: Sebastian Pandonis

This is a Fragments of Forests is a site-specific exhibition with artists Linnea Lindberg and Mari Mattsson focusing on notions of subjective memory, time and fortune-telling, perception and traces of human presence through acts of breathing and lyric poetry.

The International Master’s Programme in Curating Art has a collaboration with Accelerator. The students create events in connection to themes that Accelerator wishes to highlight in the exhibition programme. This event is curated by Linnea Wästfelt and Jonas van Kappel and developed in connection to Lisa Tan’s exhibition Dodge and/or Burn. Fragments of Forests is a site-specific exhibition focused on notions of subjective memory, time and fortune-telling, perception and traces of human presence through acts of breathing and lyric poetry. After the event on 4 October, traces of both works will be on view until mid-December as part of Accelerator’s public programme.

Intrigued by solitary remains of forests as well as iconic ancestors of lyricism such as Sappho, whose work has stood the test of time only in fragmentary form, Fragments of Forests approaches the forest as a non-linear labyrinth to both get lost and find solace within; as a physical manifestation of an inner world. For this evening, the artists Linnea Lindberg and Mari Mattsson have created sound-based and textual works that in different ways convey strategies to deal with the past, present and future, with uncertainty, forgetfulness, fragility, memories and hopeful wishes.

Linnea Lindberg is an artist working with fragmented poetry, clay, images and drawings with charcoal. For this event, she will present the new work IN LOVING MEMORY: a text-based installation on amnesia and longing, exploring the mind as a haunted house. She holds an MFA from the Royal Institute of Arts, Stockholm.

Mari Mattsson explores concepts such as time, technology and nature through installation, sound and scores. During this event, she will present a new sound piece based on breathing exercises and the folkloric history of the cuckoo bird as a fortune-teller. She graduated in 2023 with an MFA at the Royal Institute of Arts, Stockholm.

The event starts at 18:00 by the entrance of Accelerator with a duration of approximately 30 minutes. After a short introduction, we will move towards the site in a 5-minute joint procession.

Free, no registration required.

Credits

Curators: Linnea Wästfelt and Jonas van Kappel
Artists: Linnea Lindberg and Mari Mattsson
Mentor: Nina Øverli

2 September five Curating art students from Stockholm University curate the making of a collaborative art installation in soapstone, together with artist Anna Zingmark in Kiruna.

This art installation is a part of the Curera project's collaboration programe Learnings. The students recently developed a proposal for the relocation of Kiruna’s public art to the new city park.

Together with the artist Anna Zingmark (b.1990, Gällivare) the area where the future park is being built will be explored, tracing its contours, marking its boundaries and imagining its future possibilities. The manifestation aims to create a sense of collective ownership of Kiruna’s new city park as a space for art, and thus the public is invited to actively participate in this ceremonial inauguration.

Arranged by Konstfrämjandet Norrbotten and Curating Art at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics together with Kiruna Municipality.

Participating artist

Anna Zingmark

Participating curators

Joel Albinsson is a Stockholm based curator whose work engages with the temporal and spatial qualities of sounding art, as well as with questions regarding democracy, urbanities, and the power over the city.

Hanna Mara Noor Bargheer is a curator working between Sweden and Germany. She aims to combine art and politics in her work, thinking about the ways in which we have meaningful and democratic access to culture and our cities.

Jonas van Kappel is a curator and art historian from the Netherlands, Amsterdam. His work centers around multisensory and associative art experiences, site specificity and audience perspectives by combining social issues with philosophical questions.

Victoria McCarthy is an Argentinian visual arts curator and producer specialised in contemporary art. She is currently looking into the intersection of art and lithium extraction, focusing on neoextractivism and the ‘green’ transition.

Linnea Wästfelt is a curator and artist based in Stockholm. She holds a degree in fine art photography from Glasgow school of art and is mainly focusing on audience participation and involving the local community in projects.

A film programme and seminar at Färgfabriken.

Film programme: 4 – 7 May 2023, 11:00 – 16:00
Seminar: 6 May 2023, 14:00 – 16:00
This programme is free and does not require RSVP. Both the film screening and the seminar will be held in English.

Lithium, ‘white gold’, ‘oil of the 21st century’ are some of the names used to designate the soft, silvery-white metal at the heart of the future ‘green’ energetic transition. In a time where countries in the Global North make deals and agreements to transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energies, lithium’s relevance is increasing.

The artworld’s interest in lithium has grown in the last years, with cultural projects and exhibitions on lithium taking place in different parts of the world. Artists are starting to show a profound interest in the intersection between lithium and contemporary art, researching its origin in the Big Bang, the consequences of lithium mining activities in extractive zones, supply chains, Indigenous creation stories, the effects of lithium in human and non-human bodies, or the supposed intangibility of our virtual world. Many of the artworks produced in this context facilitate insights and, in some cases, provide resistance into the geopolitics of ecology, by countering the dominant narrative of the ‘green’ transition.

Seeing Lithium is divided in two parts. Firstly, a film programme that brings together five short video works created by Unknown Fields, Juan Arturo García, Alejandra Prieto, LiCo (David Habets, Cameron Hu, and Stefan Schäfer), and Grupo de Investigação Territorial. The selected videos explore lithium’s current and future extraction sites in the Global North and the Global South, its impact on our states of mind, its origin in the beginning of everything, and the socio-political conflicts it brings forward.

The second part of this programme consists of a seminar, where contemporary artist David Larsson, sustainability researcher and professor Henrik Ernstson, and visual arts curator Victoria McCarthy present different approaches and considerations about the current state of affairs of lithium, its extraction, and its intersection with contemporary art.

Film programme participants:

Unknown Fields is a nomadic art- and design research studio founded in 2009 by Australian in-dependent designer, architect and curator Liam Young, and British artist, architect and writer Katie Davies. Their practice seeks to show the shadows cast by contemporary cities, venturing into expeditions in remote sites of the world. They use primarily film and animation to create chronicles of narratives embedded in global systems and supply chains, shedding light on the consequences of emerging environmental and technological scenarios.

Juan Arturo García is a Mexican contemporary artist, currently a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His practice explores accented ways of living, their biopolitical affordances, and tactics for their representation. His latest research studies the production of scientific knowledge in Latin America throughout history, with a particular focus on how complex intertwinings of technical, cultural, mystical, and political desires have been deployed – and how to understand their consequences.

Alejandra Prieto is a Chilean contemporary artist who uses paintings, videos, sculptures, and installations as her media. She studied a BA in Arts in the Catholic University of Chile, and an MA in Visual Arts at Chile University. She has exhibited her works in many art spaces in Chile, and in several international venues and events, such as the La Habana Biennial, Saatchi Gallery (London), SIART Biennial (La Paz), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), and Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (Mexico City).

LiCo is a research-based art collective which produces fictions, films, and installations on the choreography of mental and environmental life. The collective is composed of physicist, landscape architect and artist David Habets, anthropologist of technoscience Cameron Hu, and political theorist and researcher Stefan Schäfer.

Grupo de Investigação Territorial (Territorial Research Group) is an action-research collective focused on ecological and socio-environmental struggles, composed of researchers and architects Antonio del Giudice, Godofredo Enes Pereira, Jacob Bolton, Mingxin Li, and Tiago Patatas. The group first came together to shed light on the implications of the planned mining projects in the Barroso region, in the North of Portugal.

Seminar participants:

David Larsson is a Swedish contemporary artist based in Jordbro and Stockholm. He works with long-term artistic investigations, focusing on issues of social development and modernity, political events, natural resources, and collecting/archives. These results of these investigations are continuously presented through installations and exhibitions. Alongside artists Hanna Ljungh and Gideonsson/Londré, he initiated the exhibition Litiumtiden at Haninge Konsthall (2022) and the Litiumfestivalen on the island of Utö (2022), where they explored a multitude of perspectives on lithium.

Henrik Ernstson is a Strategic Sustainability researcher and professor, currently working at KTH. He is developing a situated approach to urban political ecology with a special focus on southern and postcolonial urbanism, and, at the same time, a film-based research practice, that uses cinematic ethnography, montage and essay film to engage in the texture, embodiment, and situatedness of political and environmental practices, knowledges and politics. He has published the books Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies (MIT Press, 2019), and Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-Obscene: Interruptions and Possibilities (Routledge, 2019).

Victoria McCarthy is an Argentinian visual arts curator and producer. She worked as an exhibition producer and education coordinator at the Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, the largest cultural centre in Latin America. In 2021, she relocated to Sweden in pursuit of an International Masters in Curating Art at Stockholm University. She co-curated with Yul Cho the performance piece How to Draw a Voice, by artists Heidi Edström and Feronia Wennborg for Accelerator; and coordinated the IASPIS Open Studios Autumn 2022. Her current curatorial research explores the intersection between lithium extraction and contemporary art.

This project was made possible thanks to the support of the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University, and Färgfabriken.

A site-specific public sound installation in the covered terrace by Malmskillnadsgatan 47 / Tunnelgatan 2.

18 May – 1 June
Audible between 07:00 – 22:00

Opening May 18, 18:00

The installation is inaugurated with an introduction by Ellen Arkbro and Joel Albinsson, followed by a communal listening to the sound work.

In the middle of the city, at the point where Tunnelgatan and Malmskillnadsgatan meet, a brick building gives way to an occluded passage, a covered terrace. This place is a stone’s throw away from the district’s main street, immediately adjacent to the infamous stairs that Olof Palme’s killer used to make their escape, and above popular Brunkebergstunneln. These sites, though their significance vary greatly in character, all hold a strong place in the public consciousness of the city as sites of transit and commerce, of memory, and the melding of striking architecture and historic feats of engineering.

In contrast, the terrace itself is insignificant to most. Designed to fit a one-way escalator and a lift, it is a space of pure function which provides the city with much needed accessibility. It serves this purpose but does little else. There is no monumentality, no grandeur, no weight of history. It is next to, near, but ultimately a passive bystander to things bigger than itself. Still, it operates as a part in a vital system designed to ferry people up and down Brunkebergsåsen, the steep ridge that cuts across northern Stockholm.

Here the terrace lies, tucked away. Appearing as a hole in the cityscape, not immediately visible unless you know where to look or if you approach it with purpose. The enclosed emptiness calls out for something to fill it and give it shape: to mark it, amending function with form. To prompt the city’s inhabitants to stop and consider what the city is made up of. The holes and pockets, the places that exist next to or in-between, the spaces that still serve a purpose and those that have been made into appendixes, traces of past functions.

Ellen Arkbro responds to the call with a sonic intervention which alters our perception of this otherwise unremarkable space. As the work fills the passage, the space is at once condensed and expanded. The sound melds with the mechanical rhythmic beating of the escalator and the constant thrum of traffic from outside while providing an alternative, embodied mode of listening. The terrace is thus remade into sculptural form which unfolds and changes as one moves through it. The sound seeps through the cracks, flowing out in a suggestive invitation to come and discover, and to exist in this place for a while.

Ellen Arkbro (b.1990, Stockholm) is a Berlin-based composer, musician and sound artist working with harmony and intonation. Her work includes compositions for ensembles and orchestras as well as sustained chordal sculptures presented in installation form.

She has presented her work at Barbican in London, Munch museum in Oslo, Blank Forms in New York, GRM in Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie in Cologne among other places. She is currently an artist in residence at La Becque in Switzerland.

Joel Albinsson (b.1997, Örebro) is a Stockholm-based curator whose work engages with the temporal and spatial qualities of sounding art, as well as with questions regarding urbanities and the power over the city.

Albinsson is currently finishing his master’s degree in curating art at Stockholm University. Recent curatorial work includes the performance piece En Kör Möter at Accelerator in Stockholm with co-curator Hanna Bargheer, and the publication Humanitet for Folkrörelsernas konstfrämjande.

Join us for a day of celebrating and supporting art curators! Whether you work at an institution or independently, you know how challenging and rewarding curating can be. You also know how important it is to connect with your peers and share your experiences. Curated by Sarah Rodrigues.

On Saturday 27 May, at Slipvillan, you are invited to a full-day programme with discussions on the working realities of curators, workshops for knowledge exchange, and space for care and support. Don’t miss “LULL”, a massage and live piano experience, nor the Speed-dating for Curators & Collaborators, where you can meet potential partners for your future projects (open to all art professionals).

Space is limited, so book your tickets now for each of the activities you want to take part in. We look forward to seeing you!

Click here to book your tickets

Programme and more info

Ifra Shariq and Yul Cho collaborated to curate a series of workshops for their curatorial degree project. This collaboration birthed ‘close-enough,’ a curatorial initiative driven by their shared experiences, concerns, and reflections on the Swedish art world. Through candid conversations, they recognized the need to bridge the gap between art institutions and underrepresented communities, fostering engagement and inclusivity for all. The name ‘close-enough’ playfully alludes to the distance art institutions sometimes maintain from their audiences, hinting at an invisible line that people are afraid to cross for fear of getting too close to or touching the art.

Their collective experiences under this initiative culminated in the publication titled “How to Navigate Art Institutions,” which is the outcome of a highly process-based exploration grounded in Shariq and Cho’s interactions with diverse individuals and groups. Through “How to Navigate Art Institutions,” Shariq and Cho delve into the dynamics of exclusion present in Swedish art institutions and strive to identify barriers both within and around them. Each chapter contributes to a cumulative summary of the insights and discoveries as they conducted research, held discussions, and experimented with different methods to overcome these challenges.

The launch will include a presentation by the curators and space for book discussions.

Opening 15 June, 18:00–21:00, open to all

Exhibition period: 16–29 June

Opening Hours: 12:00–16:00

Gabey Tjon a Tham (1988) is a multidisciplinary artist working and living in the Hague, The Netherlands. For her first solo exhibition in Stockholm, the artist transforms a yellow sea container into a site-specific sensory experience reflecting on ever-changing urban landscapes and complex properties between man-made, technology, and nature. The immersive installation consisting of kinetic light sculptures, a two-channel video, and a sound composition focuses on the harbor area and the water as a vibrant system with its own temporality where all agents have to adapt to different laws of nowadays unsteadiness.

About the curator

Sona Stepanyan (1987, Armenia) is a freelance curator based in Stockholm and a student of the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University. The exhibition is made as part of her degree project.

A VR exhibition released online 11 June. Curated by Elias Kautsky as part of a degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme at Stockholm University.

Tide pools are bodies of seawater that form on the shore during low tide. They are at this time cut off from the sea, and what can be observed is a habitat with animals and plants that are especially adapted to these conditions. In the planning of this project, social tide pools where forming all over the world due to the ongoing pandemic. Gatherings, in exhibition spaces and elsewhere, were no longer possible and the constant flux of people in physical spaces halted. The habitat changed from sea to tide pool.

Tide Pool is an exhibition with five artists set in a virtual space, accessed by physical means. The works are all made to be experienced with 360-degree technology, and while physical space is at times referenced, it is sparsely represented. Instead the spaces that the visitor will encounter are created by the minds of the artists, and then inhabited by the mind of the visitor. The touch of the hand, and the presence of a fellow visitor may at first seem absent during low tide, but when the immediate surroundings are cut off, for a moment, you are immersed in Tide Pool.

Artists

Adel Akram Alameddine
Karolina Brobäck
Jacob Broms Engblom
Valentine Isaeus-Berlin
Anna Nordström

The exhibition was open on weekends from 12pm to 5pm and during the week from 1pm to 6pm.

Home is the place where we feel safe, spend time with our loved ones, and refuel our energy.
How does our perception of home change, when we are now asked to spend more time in our own space?
We visit art institutions, go to galleries, travel for exhibitions, and meet like-minded people who share a passion for art and exhibitions.
How does our perception of art change when we are now asked to refrain from visiting exhibitions?
Art brings us together, helps us exchanging ideas, and addresses the needs and circumstances of our society and the world.
How does our perception of both, art and home, change when we exhibit art at home, live with it for a while, and open our home to visitors?

In the exhibition Att uppleva konst hemifrån, curator Silvia Thomackenstein asks herself these questions and exhibits the works of artist Sara Nielsen Bonde in her private garden. In these tricky times, she wants to make a physical visit to an exhibition possible and therefore works site-specific allowing the visitor to perceive art in the curator’s home.

Bonde plays with the interpretation and perspectives of different materials and our expectations of them in her mostly sculptural work. She is interested in the perception of trees, wood, bark, in particular, as something living and decaying. For her, the exhibition project is an opportunity to position the works in an outdoor environment.

About the artist

Sara Nielsen Bonde (b. 1992 Denmark) graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2019. In the same year she received the Fredrik Roos Art Grant and exhibited at the konsthall Artipelag in the Stockholm archipelago. Today, the artist lives and works in Gothenburg.

How to participate

In order to protect the curator’s private sphere and thus remain true to the curatorial concept, you are asked to send a short message to +46 76 911 24 27 about your intention to visit the exhibition. You will receive a confirmation and the exact address in reply. This also guarantees that the recommended minimum distance to residents and other visitors can be maintained. The private garden can be entered without any interaction with the residents of the house, but the curator will, of course, be there and will be happy to engage in dialogue.

Live-event on June 11

As part of the exhibition, the host will broadcast a live-event on June 11, 18:30. In order to spark a conversation about wood, curator Silvia Thomackenstein invites you to a round table talk as part of the exhibition, where different perspectives on wood meet, overlap and complement each other - which can create a completely new view of wood. You are invited to experience how complex the material wood can be – or become, how detailed you can work with it, how you can change its structure or even how to draw inspiration from it. The guests of this talk are Andreas Nobel (Interior designer), Céline Montanari (scientist), Max Jacob Falk (cabinetmaker) and Sara Nielsen Bonde (artist).

The book gathers personal thoughts and reflections from 15 artists working within a broad array of practices, with the aim of expanding public perceptions of what comprises artistic work – from an open, speculative and affective viewpoint.

Pre-launched June 6

A public launch event was been postponed to the autumn, 2020, but Letters to Process was pre-launched on June 6, 2020. It will then be possible to acquire a free copy at Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation (Stockholm) during their regular opening hours, or to place a postal order by sending an email to: letterstoprocess@gmail.com (the book is free, but you will be asked to reimburse the postal costs).

The catalyst behind Letters to Process is a solo piece by dancer and choreographer Linda Blomqvist titled Selma (2019). During the process of creating the piece, Linda wrote numerous letters to and for Selma, as if Selma was a subject – a fictive someone to lean on, dance with and write to. The collection of letters Linda wrote during the process mirror the emotional bond that arose and developed between the artist and her work over time.

In Letters to Process, Linda and Selma are in the company of 14 other artists who have been invited to engage in a similiar writing practice. They have written letters to artistic processes of their own, and treated those processes as subjects. Collectively, the letters make up a diverse archive of observations and meditations on practice and process; unravelling the relational and affective commitments that constitute artistic work.

Participating artists

Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole
Liza Baliasnaja
Linda Blomqvist
Tim Høibjerg
Inez Jönsson
Rebecca Lindsmyr
Theo Livesey
Natasja Mabesoone
Stina Nyberg
pavleheidler
Pontus Pettersson
Nicklas Randau
Adam Seid Tahir
Eirik Senje
Elinor Tollerz Bratteby

Curator/Editor

Anne Vigeland

Graphic Design

Abudi Alsaleh

Project Supervisor

Anna Efraimsson

Navigating Across Borders is a collaboration between the exhibition space Accelerator and the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University. Curator for this live streamed event is Yuying Hu.

Accelerator has a collaboration with the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University. The students create events in connection to themes that Accelerator wishes to highlight in the exhibition programme. Curator for this event is Yuying Hu. In connection with Accelerator’s current exhibition, she will present a talk that centers around multilingualism, the interrelationship between language and society, and linguistic practices that initiate diverse societal changes.

This conversation is an online only event that will be broadcasted live on Accelerator’s Facebook page. The event lasts approximately 60 mins, it is recorded and will be available in Accelerator’s podcast and YouTube channel.

Johanna Gustafsson Fürst has in her exhibition Graft the Words, Whip My Tongue been concerned with themes such as monolingualism and its normative oppression, as well as multilingualism and its enriching potentiality. Borders between different languages embody a complex of power relations that are entangled with social, political, economic, and cultural realities in contemporary societal settings. The following questions will be discussed during the talk: How could we approach such existing power relations? What does it entail to be a bilingual/multilingual subject when navigating across these borders, for example, in the process of translation? In relation to that, translator Jennifer Hayashida and Associate Professor in Spanish Johan Järlehed will discuss how language in a broad sense interacts with social change processes, and how translation practice can be interpreted as an intervention towards the current monolingual reality.

Credits:

Yuying Hu, curator
Jennifer Hayashida, poet, translator and visual artist
Johan Järlehed, Associate Professor in Spanish

The project takes the Swedish Museum of Natural History as a starting point for a dialogue about artistic and curatorial practices in the context of natural science and ideology in the present environmental situation. The museum can be seen as a container, raising questions about cultural heritage, colonialism, posthumanities, evolution and species extinction.

The project, which is led by guest professor Lina Selander from the Royal Institute of Art, began with seminars and guided tours at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Researchers and invited lecturers shared their perspectives on the historical and contemporary role of natural history museums, with a focus on notions of collecting and systematizing. Drawing from these experiences, the students of the Royal Institute of Art have developed research methods using archival material and other historical sources, leading up to newly produced works that will be presented at Accelerator in close collaboration with students from the Master’s Programme in Curating Art. The geographical and contextual area shared between Accelerator, the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Stockholm University, creates a foundation for further explorations of the connections between art and science.

Time and place:

Guided tours everyday at 13:00, beginning in the reception at Accelerator.
14–16 February, 12:00–18:00.

Credits:

Initiator and project leader: Lina Selander

Artists:

Mattias Andersson, Tobias Bradford, Karolina Brobäck, Sara Ekholm Eriksson, Simon Ferner, Lior Nønne Malue Hansen, Tim Høibjerg, Valentine Isæus-Berlin, Newsha Khadivi, Johanna Kindahl, Linnea Lindberg, Lina Lundquist, Georg Nordmark, Emilie Palmelund, Sixten Sandra, Klara Zetterholm

Curators:

Yuying Hu, Elias Kautsky, Silvia Thomackenstein, Anne Vigeland

My Mother’s Language was a collaboration between the exhibition space Accelerator and the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University. 29 January, 2020.

Accelerator collaborates with the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics. The students create events in connection to themes that Accelerator wishes to highlight in the exhibition programme.

My Mother’s Language is curated by Ellen Klintenberg Gedda and Onur Çimen. Taking Johanna Gustafsson Fürst’s interest in social, political and emotional aspects of language as a starting point, they present an evening that focuses on multilingualism in relation to identity and power.

“My mother’s language cuts against my mouth, as though my mouth remembers how ashamed I used to be of speaking our language in front of others. Now that I’d like to bring it back into my mouth, my mouth won’t let me”, the narrator says in Serbocroatian. Experiences of the role that language plays in shaping one’s own identity and the political and structural conditions of that process, as illustrated in Shapeshifters, is the focus of the evening, discussed through the lens of art as well as the current research in the field.

The evening begins with a conversation between artist Sophie Vuković and Carla Jonsson, Associate Professor at the Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism at Stockholm University, followed by a screening of Shapeshifters (85 min). The film serves as a point of departure for the conversation as it portrays a sense of belonging beyond national borders by using language both as material and subject matter.

Credits

Ellen Klintenberg Gedda, Curator
Onur Çimen, Co-Curator
Sophie Vuković, Artist
Carla Jonsson, Professor, Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism, Stockholm University

Exhibition and discursive programme taking place on Viking Line ship Amorella, during the cruise between Stockholm an Turku, in May 2019. The project is curated by Jasmina Šarić as part of a degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme.

Programme

Exhibition
Route: Stockholm-Turku-Stockholm
25.05. 17:00-21:00
26.05. 10:00-17:00
m/s Amorella
presented in three cabins on the deck 7, next to duty free shop

Screening of the film „Amorella“ by Lordan Zafranović (20')
Route: Stockholm-Mariehamn-Turku
25.05. 21:30
m/s Amorella
Panorama Bar on the deck 9

Artist talk
Route: Stockholm-Mariehamn-Turku
25.05. 22:00
m/s Amorella
Panorama Bar on the deck 9

Urban locations, impregnated with a meaningful history, current ambiguity and the feeling of future non-existence - for more than a decade, Croatian artist Duška Boban has been trying, through the photography, to awaken repressed memories and stimulate different potentialities in the development of urban life. Her last art project thematizes maritime identity of the city, its workers and travel, with a particular focus on ships that were built in her hometown Split and are still sailing around the world. One of them is Amorella, whose launch in 1988 is remembered by generations as one of the highest achievements of once internationally respectable shipbuilding industry of Split. Since then, and for thirty years now, Amorella has been sailing on the same route between Turku, Mariehamn and Stockholm.

In return for the exhibition and a book entitled “Amorella – a Floating City” recently presented in Split, Amorella honours the place where she was born and hosts an exhibition of earlier works by Duška Boban: The Way Home, Dinner Invitation and Modern City. Through the sea as a connecting point, the exhibition tells us a story about the memory, place and belonging - for what is common – being in the Baltic, Meditarenean, or any other place on the Earth.

About the artist

Duška Boban graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb in 2000. In 2013, she completed the postgraduate study in visual communications, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she conducted a research on urban identity which resulted in the final master’s degree thesis entitled “Public space and civic participation: Activism and Cultural Practices in Split during the last decade”. She works as a teacher of Photography, Video and Media Projects in School for Design, Graphics and Sustainable Building in Split.

More on her artwork you can find on: www.duskaboban.net

This project is supported by Viking Line and the Embassy of the Rupublic of Croatia in Sweden.

Welcome to a window in time and a doing exhibition. The project is curated by Sofia Jonsson as part of a degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme.

The exhibition deals with how to frame exhibition performativity and asks; what temporal forms are there to experience art? It will take place in a display window for one evening. Performance remains of the exhibition will be on display until 7 May.

Artwork schedule

17.00–18.00 Helrenoverad, 2018, Konrad Lidén
18.00–18.15 Parser Building, 2019, by Philip Ullman
18.15–19.00 The Gaze, 2018, Salad Hilowle
19.00–20.00 Fatima Moallim

Interim Igor Blomberg Tranæus

Welcome to an exhibition with artists David Åberg, Linda Pedersen and LIDIJA. The project is curated by Lauren Johnson as part of a degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme.

Programme
13 April: 15:00 - Special performance by LIDIJA w/ refreshments
14 April: 15:00 - Artist Talk w/ refreshments

About the exhibition

Black Moon is a fantasy world created as an attempt to address pressing existential concerns: What is the meaning of Being? Who are we? How do we belong to the world? At a time when normative guides such as ritual or religion - traditional responses to these questions - have lost popular credibility, what will we turn to? Black Moon is one suggestion. A cult not of deception, but illusion, an homage to our imaginative ability to fill fictional worlds with meaning and live in them. A two-day exhibition, Black Moon brings together artists David Åberg, Linda Pedersen and LIDIJA.

Exhibition curated by the first year's students from the International Master's Programme in Curating Art.

Participating artists:

Anna-Karin Rasmusson, Anna Ting Möller, Izabel Lind Färnstrand, Lode Kuylenstierna, Malin Westin, Rebecca Lindsmyr, Snežana Vučetić Bohm
Exhibition
26/1 - 10/2 2019

When Köttinspektionen opened in 1930, originally titled Köttbesiktningsbyrån (Meat Inspection Agency), it was with the purpose of providing a governmental institution for the inspection of slaughtered animals. The building was erected in a neoclassical style as a way of elevating the activity of executing control over Swedish meat distribution in and around the city of Uppsala. The original purpose of the building however, also points towards a historical development of governmental care-taking related to public issues of health and wellbeing.

About the exhibition

The exhibition “Body of Care and Control” takes this history as a starting point in order to examine how notions of bodily inspection are treated through a selection of artistic practices today. The artists participating in this exhibition work within a range of media and techniques, but share a common interest in the body as a concept of enquiry. In a contemporary environment where bodies are considered a constant target for exploitation, surveillance and judgement, little room is left open for both mental and physical fragility, deficiency and incapacity. The perception of a healthy body means the perception of an optimized body, obsessed with efficiency and vitality.

The exhibition presents a manifold of ways of executing both care and control over bodies, as well as where, when and how such acts touch upon one another. By presenting artistic work that openly explores inspection and care-taking, what would otherwise take place behind closed doors in the domestic or institutional domains, “Body of Care and Control” aims to broaden the public image of the repressed experiences and obscure actions that constitute being a body today.

Curators

The exhibition is curated by the first year's students from the International Master's Programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University: Anne Vigeland, Elias Kautsky, Ellen Klintenberg Gedda, Federica Brigo, Helen-Sophie Mayr, Onur Çimen, Silvia Thomackenstein, Yuying Hu.

Welcome to a performative and critical gathering, organized by Marianna Feher as part of a degree project within Curating Art.

We recently celebrated the revolutionary legacy of both 1968 and 1917 – two recurring references in history, politically as well as artistically. But what do we have to celebrate today? On the one hand, we are demonstrating for the right to fully integrate ourselves as subjects in the economic system of capitalist modes of production (the right to work, equal rights, equal wages). On the other hand, we are drifting more towards a situation where humanity itself becomes superfluous when it is no longer necessary for the reproduction of capitalist society (unemployed, migrants, people without papers). Therefore, the revolutionary energies seem to remain captive in the menagerie. In a current state of rising xenophobia, fascism, nationalist fronts, neoliberal depression and climate destruction to name a few – the bleak reality of modernity tells us nothing else than to urgently stress new formulations and reinventions of emancipatory politics. Is it therefore time to abandon previous revolutionary legacies...or perhaps, are they even more relevant today?

Art as a counterpower to state politics has been central to many 20th-century avant-gardes. From constructivism, dadaism, surrealism, and to the boom of artistic movements of the 1960’s such as happenings, situations, performances, and fluxus; art has been considered a political standpoint that remains influential to approaching social issues and crisis through aesthetics and critique. If we reflect on the legacy of political and artistic interventions in revolutionary terms, how are we to understand art in late capitalism?

Together with artists, writers and theorists, who all address or reflect upon these notions in their work – this one-day session aims to approach these questions through a hybrid format including talks, discussions, performances and screenings. This is an attempt to, in various ways, address and conceptualize critical aspects on (art)work, value-criticism, and revolutionary legacies – in order to put forward notions of critical thinking across and beyond capitalist modes of production, and to cross-think some (im)possible future directions.

Participants

Olivia Berkowicz, Rasmus Fleischer, Astrid Grelz, Alice Håkansson, Julia Kouneski, Mattin, Max Ronnersjö, Frida Sandström and Karl Sjölund.

Welcome to a a workshop based art project by language introductory high school students and R A K E T A. Curated by Niki Kralli Anell, as a degree project.

One map and a collective stride will take us to alternative cityscapes in Södertälje city. Welcome to join!

Geography
γη (earth) and γράφω (write, describe)

109 Words 7 Days 3 Dioramas and one stride is an ongoing investigation of the city of Södertälje, its geography and its scenery. A project experimenting with narration strategies and printing methods.

New associations, descriptions and meetings – parallel geographies – to Södertälje city have formulated through investigations in photography, sound and text sessions. The workshop based art project 109 Words 7 Days 3 Dioramas and one stride finalizes in three exhibitions spaces, 3 dioramas, where the participants work have landed, intersecting with its urban surroundings.

In(form) – a Live Archive activates the archive of previous degree projects that have been realized within the International Master Programme in Curating Art. The initiative is set in motion by Edit Fándly as a degree project within the Curating Art Programme.

Archive opening
18:00-18:10 – Introduction by Edit Fándly

18:10-18:40 – Discussion with Anneli Bäckman and Tova Mozard about the CC7 Biennial – a degree project realized in 2007, as a collective expression by Stina Barkow, Katrin Behdjou Arshi, Alexander Benz, Anneli Bäckman, Nathaniel Howe, Sarah Kim and Bettina Schultz in collaboration with artist Tova Mozard.

The opening includes the screening of Tova Mozard’s video work, Jack of all Trades (2007) commissioned for the CC7 Biennial. The piece will be only displayed during the archive opening.

Archive closing
Friday, 25 May / 18:00 – 20:00

18:00 – 18:30 – Discussion with curators Elena Jarl and Iliane Kiefer about their curatorial final project, Rethinking Flânerie (2016, participating artists: Nisrine Boukhari, Santiago Mostyn and Johanna Steindorf).

19:00 – Launch of the zine Intimate from Time to Time - a project on intimacy, community and collaborative practice by Rosa and Alen from School in Common and friends.

The archive is open on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday (22, 24, 25 May) / 11:00-18:00 and Wednesday (23 May) / 11:00–15:00.

About the project
By placing archival materials of a few selected previous degree projects in the curator students’ lecture room and through an event series, In(form) – a Live Archive imagined as a platform, one possible method to be inspired by what has been done by our fellows in recent past. To make live, visible and accessible the unseen.

The main objective of this initiative is accumulated around the questions how and what can we learn from each other: from a peer curator, from artist(s), from our numerous approaches, a multitude of views, working procedures and aims.

With many thanks to the curators of the activated previous degree projects for their kind assistance: Stina Barkow, Katrin Behdjou Arshi, Alexander Benz, Anneli Bäckman, Nathaniel Howe, Sarah Kim and Bettina Schultz (CC7 Biennial, 2007) ▪ Heather Jones and Sally Müller (Let’s Pretend We Live Here, 2013) ▪ Olga Krzeszowiec Malmsten and Mirja Majevski (Coming Across - Researching / Notes on Intercultural Translation, 2014-2015) ▪ Rado Ištok and Yvonique Wellen (Rethinking Education and Decolonizing Knowledge, 2015-2016) ▪ Elena Jarl and Iliane Kiefer (Rethinking Flânerie, 2016).