Student projects

Exhibition 27 – 31 August
Opening reception 27 August 16:00 – 18:00
Artist talk 30 August 14:30 – 15:10
Finissage performance 31 August 14:00 – 15:00

Imagine laying down in a honey-filled bathtub. The honey sticks to the body, like a second layer of skin. Sticky and slimy. The joy of sweet nectar is suddenly erased by the panic caused by a sense of entrapment. This sticky feeling can arise from other sources too; a clingy lover, a shameful memory, or a trauma. Sticky objects, experiences, and people cling to us, and challenge our sense of autonomy. It is an experience of an outer invasion of the self.

This exhibition brings together the artistic practices of Alva Markusson (SE), Ida Hebsgaard Mogensen (DK), and Mara Schwerdtfeger (AU) and investigates sticky feelings as an impulse that simultaneously call for control and surrender; for reining in and letting go. rein in moves within a dynamic field of tension between discomfort and desire, between the urge to control and release. This oscillation forms a space where emotions rub up against the body, where something feels off, uncomfortable, unresolved – sticky.

Through her sculptures, Alva Markusson investigates themes of desire through materiality: horse hair, textile, metal, leather, and concrete. She sees these materials as carriers of a symbolic language, each with its own message. Her sculptures serve as phenomenological investigations of our inner and outer landscapes, tracing the subtle ways in which texture, form, and space affect body and mind. On the occasion of this exhibition, she will present sculptures as part of a new body of work.

In the performance HUDLØS, dancer Ida Hebsgaard Mogensen, examines the boundary between interior and exterior, where the body – the flesh – serves as the border between self and other. Through her artistic practice she explores the limits of the body; the grotesque and the sublime. HUDLØS is a forty-five minute long solo piece created by Hebsgaard Mogensen in 2025.

As part of HUDLØS, Mara Schwerdtfeger’s sound piece Code Switch will be exhibited. Schwerdtfeger is a composer and curator who plays the viola and collaborates with her laptop to create live performances as well as recorded pieces for film, performance, and dance. Her practice is guided by the shifts of perspective and interaction of rhythms and beings within environments.

Code Switch is a sonic image of the subsurface. Made solely of digitally manipulated contact microphone recordings of surfaces like tree trunks, stones, and throat the piece aims to amplify a perspective that sits within the ground. The title refers to the change of body and verbal language that occurs when in different cultural or social settings and places this terminology onto our relationship with the Earth.

Elvira K. Wikman is a curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. Rooted in contemporary art, her work explores the fragility of existence, often dwelling on themes of metamorphosis, relationality, and the uncanny. She holds a BSc in International Relations and a BA in Art History. She is currently enrolled in the International Master’s Programme in Curating at Stockholm University. She is 50% of the curatorial collaboration Spitbucket.

Vernissage: 4 September, 17:00 – 19:00.

Collective reading: 6 September, 13:00 – 15:00.
Hosted by Sam Druant and Maria Hardin.

“Ill feelings make you both impressionable and hard. To stop yourself feeling suddenly diffuse, as if you are disintegrating, you make yourself small and solid – impenetrable. You appear self-contained because you spend most of your energy trying to hold all the parts of yourself together.”

Alice Hattrick, Ill Feelings, 2021

There was a wound; we dwelled brings together the multidisciplinary practices of Sam Druant, Maria Hardin, Anna Amalie Richelsen, and Sara Wylie, laying bare invisible female pain and neglected wounds. As a visitor, you are invited to encounter how existing in crip time means relating to temporality, linearity, and productivity in radically different terms. As such, new rhythms conform to the body's condition, rather than the other way around. Within this exhibition, the discourse of bodily failures and interior unrest faces the body’s potential. The artists draw on iconographic motifs and symbolism to contemplate the mourning of the body we once knew, as we embrace its reimagined version.

Female wounds take many shapes: they may lie dormant, carry the weight of guilt, or remain undiagnosed. The title of the exhibition There was a wound; we dwelled, drawn from Leslie Jamison’s essay Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain, gestures toward the shame projected onto female sick bodies, cast as monstrous or hysterical, both in past and present. This sense of otherness, within a sphere where health is the norm, seeps into us - rendering women to feel distorted, bypassed, undesirable. The works in the exhibition relate to a persistent tension within the body, wavering between sickness and health, in search of a language to express the felt ambiguities and wounds.

Our bodies are porous, relational, entangled. Far from isolated, they are shaped by an inherent relationality that lies at the centre of the exhibition. Druant, Hardin, Richelsen and Wylie present their artistic practice as a manifesto to introduce new structures of being and caring. By constructing a web of relationships rooted in collectivity and empathy, bodies may move beyond individualism. There was a wound; we dwelled welcomes visitors to encounter, stay, rest, and dwell – in whatever capacity that may be.

A collective reading, hosted by Sam Druant and Maria Hardin, will complement the exhibition on Saturday 6th of September. The gathering will take place from 13.00 – 15:00, and becomes a site for collectively questioning the ways our bodies exist in their relationality – towards the world we inhabit, healing, labor, rest, and the capitalist systems we navigate.

Feel free to bring a piece of your own writing or the writing of someone you love to share (max. 500 words). The reading will start at 13:30h. The artists will be present for 2 hours. You are welcome to stay at a pace that resonates with you. The venue is wheelchair accessible, with seating options for all.

Join, linger, contribute

Featuring works by Rosa Häggbom, Nada Ali, and Brenda El Rayes, this exhibition explores the role of religion in contemporary art.

Exhibition: 22 May – 14 June
Vernissage: 22 May, at 16:30 – 19:00
Artist talk: 3 June, at 17:30

What does it mean to speak of religion in contemporary art?

In Sacred Tensions, religion is not treated as a theme to be decoded or distanced, but as a living, complex presence within contemporary artistic practice. The exhibition challenges the secular norms that often render religious and spiritual expression invisible in art spaces. Instead of reducing sacred content to metaphor or psychology, Sacred Tensions invites visitors to encounter the religious on its own terms — with attentiveness, care, and openness.

Featuring a group of artists whose works are shaped by ritual, belief, theological thought, and metaphysical inquiry, the exhibition explores how religion continues to shape cultural life. These practices do not illustrate religion; they perform, question, and transform it — refusing easy separations between the sacred and the contemporary.

In a time of shifting worldviews, Sacred Tensions proposes that the sacred is not a relic of the past, but a vital part of the present. It holds space for both faith and doubt, for inherited forms and new rituals, for devotion and critique — not as opposites, but as forces in relation.

Curated from a post-secular perspective, the exhibition invites viewers into the tensions between the sacred and the secular, offering a space where religion is not translated, but felt.

Date: Saturday 24 May 2025
Time: 15:00 – 17:00
Location: Konsthall C, Cigarrvägen 14 in Hökarängen

"Hemma är wherever me da la regalada gana!" – "Home is wherever I goddamn feel like it! is a compelling sound art intervention by Rossana Mercado-Rojas. A sequel to Home is Where the Heart is (2019). The work features a spoken word by Princess Jiménez Beltré. (La Dekoloniala org). Curated by Noël Platts as part of a degree project.

The title blends three -European- languages the artist currently navigates by choice or necessity. Loosely translated, the phrase in Abya Yala Spanish, “Home is wherever I goddamn feel like it!” becomes an empowering statement, a playful act of refusal.

Using a combination of sound, installation, and image projection, Mercado-Rojas creates a space where individuals are invited to feel at home – at least temporarily. Her practice reclaims agency by filling the space with empowering visual and auditory expressions drawn from her own Andean cultural practices and experiences, creating new symbols from the old while preserving their essence. People can connect through a range of sensory and symbolic elements: sound, color, symbols, words, tone, and repetition – evoking the rhythm of a mantra, a prayer, or a call. These elements create a shared emotional and spiritual atmosphere. Fabrics and objects of personal significance – such as a handwoven textile from the artist’s great-grandmother, or a glass printed with her grandfather’s face and name, a memento from his passing – are arranged in altar-like structures that evoke ritual-like experiences.

With participants at its core, the work summons energy to consecrate the space as a sanctuary – where community is felt, not forced, and where the relentless machinery of coloniality is held at bay. Shaped by a specific political and social context, the work challenges traditional notions of what it means to belong somewhere.

Date: Wednesday 28 May 2025
Time: 19.00 – 21.00
Location: Weld, Norrtullsgatan 7 in Stockholm

DANCEWORK is a group exhibition of dances. It looks at the conditions under which dance is made and shared. It looks at value, labour, and precarity as structural conditions shaping the lives of artists and the art.

Identity is fickle. So is value. Still, we find ourselves drawn to practices that are barely recognized, underpaid, and often invisible. We become choreographers, dancers, producers, curators – sometimes all at once – and we take on the invisible work behind those roles. But what is this work, really?

It might be lying awake at night thinking about speculative futures and unlikely gatherings; it might be making something out of nothing or working with near-zero budgets. It is driven by a willingness to work work work work work (Rihanna), often in the face of uncertainty, in order to make something else—something different, something which might create space for other ways of thinking and being. This is the kind of work that begins in hope, moves through doubt, bitterness, stubbornness, rejection, moments of surrender; and never really ends.

After fifteen years of working as a dancer, Unn Faleide, the dancer and curator of the exhibition, began studying curating. This shift opened up a space to reflect on how precarity not only surrounds artistic work but often becomes embedded in the work itself: shaping its rhythms, aesthetics, and limits. It also gave rise to a curiosity about how choreographic and curatorial strategies might speak to and challenge each other. What happens when practices from the visual arts meet the embodied, processual temporality of dance? What new formats, tensions, or freedoms arise?

Given a modest budget but a desire to realize a large-scale group exhibition, the idea developed of a project where roles blur, where the dancer takes on the curatorial and precarity becomes both content and framework. Rather than assigning tasks or requesting new works, seven choreographers were invited to contribute a dance to the exhibition on their own terms—by giving, lending, selling, donating, or creating a piece specifically for DANCEWORK, the exhibition.

DANCEWORK features contributions from Oda Brekke, Sindri Runudde, Maja Hannisdal, Stina Nyberg, Ellen Söderhult, Deborah Hay, and Freddy Houndekindo.

These choreographers were invited not only for their artistic brilliance, but also because they were part of the curator’s immediate surroundings—people encountered in passing or already in conversation. The project recognizes that one of the things artists gain or “earn”, is community and friendship. DANCEWORK is as much about these relationships as it is about the works themselves.

Each artist was offered a symbolic fee of 999 SEK, regardless of whether they contributed a recycled score, a second-hand choreography, or a custom dance. They were asked to track their time – emails, rehearsals, or thinking – and were free to work as much or as little as they wished. All accepted. Most chose to work physically in the studio. All invested more time than the budget allowed, knowingly and with care. The project became a mirror of the economy of attention and labour underpinning much of artistic production – especially in dance.

DANCEWORK is performed by one body who embodies multiple choreographies and curates the exhibition in real time, through lived presence at Weld. The dancing body becomes a site of convergence, where artistic voices meet, diverge, and transform. The curatorial becomes relational, vulnerable, and political: it questions how people are brought together, and what conditions are created for artistic work to occur. What does it mean to purchase a dance; to loan it; to shape it collaboratively? These are not just legal questions, but artistic and ethical ones. They challenge existing models of working and what a “work” really is.

Throughout the process, authorship was neither assumed nor imposed. In some works, the dancer operates as an interpretive vessel; in others, their contribution is intrinsic to the work’s existence. Where relevant, co-authorship was acknowledged contractually. More than resolving questions of credit, the project asked what each person brings into the collaboration, because ultimately art is collective.

In the end, DANCEWORK is an excuse to dance – to keep working with people and practices that inspire. It is personal. It is an offering, an experiment, and simply, a way to keep moving.

Work(s) by:
Oda Brekke
Unn Faleide
Maja Hannisdal
Deborah Hay
Freddy Houndekindo
Stina Nyberg
Sindri Runudde
Ellen Söderhult

Curated by: Unn Faleide
Light and sound: Patsy Lassbo
With support from: Stockholm University and Weld

Heartfelt thanks to Nina Øverli, Anna Koch, and the Curating Art class for their generous mentorship and support throughout the process. Deep gratitude also goes to all the artists who have dedicated their time and energy to making this evening possible.

ODA BREKKE
is a dance artist based in Stockholm. In her practice she takes on roles as choreographer, performer and writer with an interest in experimenting with performative frameworks and forms. She is active at höjden studio where she often organises study groups and talks.

UNN FALEIDE
is a dance artist, producer and curator whose work explores precarious conditions, alternative structures in dance and the decolonial potential of curatorial practices.

MAJA HANNISDAL
is a dance artist and videographer based in Oslo, whose work moves between the beautiful and the grotesque, exploring value through the overlooked or seemingly irrelevant.

DEBORAH HAY
is a significant postmodern choreographer whose groundbreaking solo and group works continue to reshape the relationship between body, perception and presence in dance.

FREDDY HOUNDEKINDO
is an interdisciplinary artist and dancer working with dance, film, fashion and music, with roots in street dance and a practice grounded in movement research.

PATSY LASSBO
is a composer, theatre maker and performer working with theatre, dance and live music, focusing on technical and sensory dramaturgies.

STINA NYBERG
is a Stockholm-based choreographer whose conceptual, collaborative practice uses choreography to explore everything from electricity to gossip, often with humour, curiosity and feminist critique.

SINDRI RUNUDDE
is a choreographer and performer working at the intersection of dance, sound and storytelling, with queer, somatic and accessibility-centred perspectives in poetic, multi-sensory performances.

ELLEN SÖDERHULT
is a dancer and choreographer based in Stockholm. Her choreographic works have often taken on the collective as protagonist but also explored monstrous emotions and textures in sweet-bitter love and the ghostly in the relationship between dancer and dance. With a background in choral singing and sports, she often works with voice, immersive soundscapes and big leaps.

2 April – 16 April, 2025
Opening: April 2nd, 17-19
Performance: start 17:15
Artist: Cariz Nordlöf
Curated by Noël Platts and Ruoxi Gao
Graphic designer: Maja Godek

NAMAK (نمک) is a collaborative exhibition presented by the International Master’s Programme, in partnership with Accelerator. The installation and performance artwork draws on research into the environmental degradation of the Karun River in Iran, as well as the historical context of the Accelerator pool.

Iran's longest river, Karun, is suffering from severe environmental degradation. It has faced significant ecological damages. Industries and agriculture on non-fertile soil have led to increased salinization of the river. Salt plays a central role in NAMAK. Nordlöf uses the corrosive properties of salt as a way to artistically manipulate aluminium pieces. With saltiness, the work seeks to draw a connection to our memories of salt and thirst, as well as the vulnerable body made fragile through prolonged exposure to contamination. Its saltiness also parallels the concerns addressed in Goldin and Senneby’s Flare-Up exhibition at Accelerator, such as biochemical imbalance and its effect on life forms.

The Karun River is indeed thirsty much like the pool at Accelerator. In its former days, when the building was a laboratory, the pool was filled with water to prevent potential fire outbreak. Now it stands empty, thirsty and yearning for both past and future. Set in the hollow depths of the Accelerator pool, Cariz performs a heartfelt homage to salt and water. Encircled by glimmering aluminium sheets, washed in salt water, hammered and hung. NAMAK offers a glimpse of salty memories – such as sand dunes glistening with salt crystals, a dry voice whispering for water, and an aluminium cup tucked into a pocket. What are your salty memories?

Cariz Nordlöf (b.1992, Uppsala and Karaj, Iran) is studying Fine Art at Konstfack, Stockholm. She has a multilingual practice and creates sculptures, sound pieces, performances and installations. Current topics in her practice focus on listening and expressing the narratives of water, time traveling, memories and sorrows. She approaches the themes by combining research with a highly presence of intuitivity in the process.

On the opening night, the artist will perform in the pool outside Accelerator. Starting at 17:15, adding a short auditory dimension to the visual experience. After the opening night the artwork can be viewed, during Accelerator opening hours from the 2–16 of April.

The curators would like to thank everyone who contributed to the project's production. A special thanks to Accelerator and to the SU curating art programme team for their professional advice and guidance. A huge appreciation is owed to the graphic designer Maja Godek for her salty printed visual. Thank you, Cariz Nordlöf, for the dedication and collaboration in bringing this event to life, and to those at Konstfack who supported Nordlöf during the production of NAMAK.

The installation is on view during the following hours.
Mon – Tues 10:30–15:00
Wed 10:30–19:00
Thurs – Fri 10:30–17:00
Sat – Sun 12:00–16:00

THE FLESH REMEMBERS is an intervention taking place in the staircase of Accelerator and stems from a collaboration between the International Master’s Programme and Accelerator. The intervention unites the artistic practices of Sofie Alm Nordsveen, Aron Dahl, and Lilian Steiner.

For four days, THE FLESH REMEMBERS will transform the staircase into a swampy, slimy, and fleshy site to explore the skin and its intricate connection to identity, memory, and time. The event creates a conceptual bridge to Sin Wai Kin’s ongoing exhibition The Time of Our Lives, where transforming identity and the shedding of skin are intimately bound, each caught in a process of change.

The skin is the largest organ of the human body. It encapsulates our inner selves: our guts, blood, flesh, and bones, as well as our identities. Skin is porous, soft and flexible. At the same time, it is armour, an enfleshed barrier between the inner and outer world. It ages with us, wrinkles up, and loosens around our bones. Through the skin, we can trace the trajectory of our lives, from birth to death. Each year is marked by a new bruise, scar, wrinkle, rash or memory of a lover’s touch; skin holds memories of pleasure and pain.

Our skin is in a continuous flux of shedding and renewing. It’s new and old, dead and alive, armour-like and soft. The skin is a liminal matter, filled with ambiguity. Our skin teaches us that the strongest border is permeable and soft; what moves in you also enters me.

30 January – 2 February

The opening takes place on Thursday, 30 January, and includes a one-time durational performance by Lilian Steiner. The performance will commence at 17:00 and end at 20:00. The artworks by Sofie Alm Nordsveen and Aron Dahl will be exhibited throughout the intervention period in the staircase of Accelerator. One of the curators will be present daily to engage in conversations and answer any questions the audience might have.

On this occasion, a publication has been created in collaboration with Elina Ulén, offering an archival and material interpretation of the curatorial concept of THE FLESH REMEMBERS. It serves as an extension for further exploration – an enduring body of work that lives on.

THE FLESH REMEMBERS is curated by Elvira K. Wikman, Isa Van den Wouwer, and Unn Faleide. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our mentor, Nina Øverli, and the team at Accelerator for their support and collaboration. Additionally, we are grateful to graphic designer Elina Ulén for her contributions.

Artworks

Durational performance (2024) by Lilian Steiner

Center of the flesh (2018) directed by Aron Dahl and Barbara Bohr, video and sound, 7 min 12 seconds
Music: Aron Dahl
Vocals, EWI, synths: Aron Dahl
Text: Allen Ginsberg
Mix and master: Andreas Pallisgaard
Music production by: Andreas Pallisgaard and Aron Dahl
Snail: Frances
Carpet: Freya Sif Hestnes

Kjøttet minnes alt jeg ikke vil huske (2022) by Sofie Alm Nordsveen
Silk, cotton, nylon, beads, meat hook, chain, various dimensions

Participants

Artists

Aron Dahl
Lilian Steiner
Sofie Alm Nordsveen

Curators

Elvira K. Wikman
Isa Van den Wouwer
Unn Faleide

Welcome to the Opening 18 June, 17.00–20.00! Live performance 18.00.
Free admission.

Venue: Project room, Färgfabriken, Lövholmsbrinken 1 (Metro stop Liljeholmen).

Curator: Ester Maria d’Avossa.

In the exhibition titled Transitive Axiom themes of translation and passing down of information are explored through the mediums of weaving and sound art. The transitive axiom, a fundamental mathematical principle, signifies that if two quantities are each equal to a third, they are equal to one other. As a non-mathematical concept, this relation can be exemplified by the wording “is an ancestor of.” Thus, beyond mathematics, this idea resonates in human relationships, highlighting interconnectedness and continuity across time.

Within this context, tacit knowledge exchange, akin to ancestral wisdom transmission, relates and exemplifies this axiom, particularly in creative practices such as weaving and musical composition. However, transmission involves translation, risking loss and transformation of information over time.

This exhibition merges the works of Sara Elggren, Swedish weaving artist, and Muiredach O’Riain, Irish composer, prompting viewers to reconsider boundaries between virtual and tangible, visual and auditory, past and present. Elggren’s tapestries, alongside O’Riain’s sound composition based on her weaving notations, illustrate the artists’ dialogue, with digital elements juxtaposed with their analogue counterparts, echoing themes of translation, transition and transformation.

Participants

Sara Elggren (b. 1986), visual and textile artist based in Stockholm, specializes in woven objects and spatial installations. Her artistic work is distinguished by a penchant for repetition and extensive series that delve into themes of technology, code, and the interplay between fabric and interface, as well as mathematical thinking. The artist explores how these elements shape the fabric’s essence, whether as a fluid image or a meticulously structured system containing specific data, through her digital notations. Through meticulous craftsmanship, Elggren transforms this strict order into something altogether new and profound.

Muiredach O’Riain (b. 1996) is an Irish musician, composer, and programmer based in Stockholm. In 2023 he obtained a Master’s degree in electroacoustic composition at Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm. His work delves into the evolving dynamics between humanity and advancing technologies such as AI and quantum computing, viewing them as potential tools for creative expression. Through his compositions, O’Riain directly engages with these technologies, crafting complex computer-generated soundscapes that blur the lines between organic and artificial sounds aiming thereby to analyse and redefine the boundaries of posthuman musical expression.

Ester Maria d’Avossa (b. 1997) is an Italian-Danish curator and exhibition producer based in Stockholm, Sweden. She is currently enrolled in the International Master’s in Curating and Art Management. With a background in art history and cultural heritage studies, d’Avossa’s curatorial work explores the evolution of heritage and knowledge exchange within the context of contemporary art. Her current research revolves around the duality of craft and art, with a particular focus on textile art.

In times of ecological and geopolitical crises, the world seems to spin faster. If we close our eyes, can we escape? Can we experience time passing by so slowly that it fades away, stretched into an endless, echoing infinity until it stops ticking? Can we dissolve into the eternal, like an ocean of waiting along the riverbank?

Echoes of Visions is a site-specific art installation at the edge of the city, disconnected from the day-to-day, exploring multisensory perception, eternal aspects of the earth and universe, memory, waiting and the experience of time. A fusion between a smellscape and a soundscape in a former sea container, transformed into a darkened non-visual space, sharpens our senses. Visitors are invited to look inwards instead of outwards, to take off their shoes and enter a cavernous borderland where time is slowed down and the enduring present seems to triumph.

The sound work was created by Berlin-based researcher and artist Hendrik Klatte (b. 1988), who explores experimental soundscapes for natural processes, ideas and emotions. Since 2022, he has studied at the Institute for Music and Media (RSH Düsseldorf) in the Master’s program Klang & Realität [Sound & Reality]. In addition to his artistic endeavours, he publishes international sound artists in thematic compilations of scientific fields on his platform and music label re:natura.

The olfactory work was developed in a collaborative process with Karolina Stockhaus (b. 1981), an independent fragrance creator, consultant and educator. Working with scent as art, she was a finalist in the Art and Olfaction Awards 2023 in Los Angeles (USA), in the category for experimental work with scent. This commissioned scent is based on curatorial, poetic exercises in automatic writing and philosophical conversations about perception, slowing down time, and eternal elements of nature to cherish.

Location: Galleri Frihamnstorget, Frihamnen
Opening event: June 6, 17:00 – 20:00
Exhibition and programme: June 6 – June 16

See the website of Frihamnstorget for opening hours and more information about Echoes of Visions, including an artist talk [opening night], and a ‘sc(i)entific’ poetry workshop [June 15].

Please note that the rear area is completely darkened.
Take off your shoes in the space and hold the walls for extra support.

Credits

Sound artist: Hendrik Klatte
Fragrance creator: Karolina Stockhaus
Graphic design: Hannes Schievink
Curator and Educator: Jonas van Kappel
Mentor: Nina Øverli

Echoes of Visions is a degree project by Jonas van Kappel within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. With a diverse background in art history, language studies and theatre, his interests and experiences lie in multi-sensory, queer and experiential approaches to contemporary art, collection research, and theatre education.

Thanks to Index Foundation and Moderna Museet for their generous contribution of materials.

Programming

Echoes of Visions presents an artist talk and a poetry workshop.

6 June
17:30 Artist Talk. Berlin-based sound artist Hendrik Klatte (b. 1988) talks about his music and re:natura: a label and platform for experimental music inspired by both nature and science.

14 June
19:00 – 20:30 Sc(i)entific Poetry Workshop. Olfactory perception is such an inscrutable, fluid experience that we, as human beings, often struggle to put it into words. How do scents and sounds affect our ability to associate, and evoke memories, thoughts and emotions? How can we write about scent and sound abstractly and poetically? In this workshop by curator Jonas van Kappel, we will write poetry in an automatic and associative way after a breathing exercise and a visit to Echoes of Visions, using our senses and art as sources of inspiration. What happens if we trust our intuition and if we are not allowed to judge the outcome?

DIVE is a two-part event consisting of a publication launch and a workshop, hosted by Skin Mutts. The event is curated by Ester Maria d’Avossa.

The publication titled DIVE is a project built to explore the Swedish artistic scene through the eyes of nine Stockholm-based artists and curators. Within each of their practices, the exploration of themes such as personal identity and belonging takes centre stage. DIVE is made in collaboration with Skin Mutts, a Brussels-based platform that focuses on redesigning the conversations on mixed cultural identities. Through firsthand accounts and narratives, Skin Mutts brings a comprehensive understanding of the Swedish art landscape from a variety of perspectives. By shedding light onto the diverse fabric composing this artistic community, we gain valuable insights into how it is shaped, perceived, and experienced by those involved in its evolution. Throughout the evening you will have the chance to deepen your understanding of the topic with the workshop Through Words. Through Words is a conversational workshop to break the ice. Think about a speed-date, but instead of yourself, the questions are focused on community, belonging and society’s perception of our identities. Join us on June 13 at Accelerator for the launch event of the publication, to dive into unique stories of belonging in between worlds.

The publication launch and workshop will be held in English.

Credits

Curator: Ester Maria d’Avossa
Skin Mutts Team: Olivia Lopez Calderon and Lisa Mei Eeraerts
Graphic Designer: Hanna Torseke
Project Supervisor: Nina Øverli

The Master’s Programme in Curating Art has a collaboration with the exhibition hall Accelerator. The students create events in connection to themes that Accelerator wishes to highlight in the exhibition programme.

Accelerator's webpage

Presented in the library of Bonniers Konsthall, the exhibition Waulking muses on the Gaelic Scottish tradition by the same name – the final stage in the creation of tweed in which women would gather to soften the woolen fabric. The process was accompanied by song and rhythmically hitting the textile, washing it with stale urine and soap. The songs would ease the brutal labour, while also providing coordination for the team. Waulking became a forum for sharing stories of love and loss through song and community. A song-less web (cló bodaich) was considered unlucky – thereby, the process of waulking transforms the fabric into a holder of stories inaccessible.

The exhibition presents the work and practice of Hedvig Bergman (b.1988) and Isabelle Sahba (b.1994). Bound together by an interest in the inherent potentiality of materiality and its ability to expand on narratives of belonging, tradition and creation. The exhibition arose through conversations between the curator and artists regarding subjects similar to those discussed in waulking song. The exhibition is presented therefore as a talisman of probings of artistic intention, the familial, love and loss.

Hedvig Bergman is an artist deeply reliant on her intuition and impulse as the driving force of her work. Each sculpture is simultaneously independent and deeply connected to the previous. One of the sculptures exhibited Tick Tock, Tick Tock (2024) is inspired by the tactility of the brush and brush binding. In the creation of brushes, the eye becomes redundant as the rhythm dictates the movement – similar to waulking. As part of her research into brush binding techniques, Bergman visited the brush bindery Iris Handtverk in Enskede, Stockholm. All of the craftsmen are visually impaired – the binding driven by tactile knowledge. The brush-like sculpture exhibited is made of black oak that has been underwater for over 3400 years and horsehair bought from the last remaining horsehair wholesaler in Europe. The artist has also tied 600 strands of her own hair into the sculpture, working while cradling her newborn.

The work and process of Isabelle Sahba is less impulsive – driven by meticulous research and a considerate exploration of the depths of the material. The work Bildstorm (2022) is an intertwined probing of Sahba’s familial history and materiality. Inspired by a stamp found on an old letter addressed to her father in Sweden from a relative overseas. The artist reckons with the power of symbolism by creating a new stamp with remnants of the old. The artist chews the stamp, breaking down the fibers of the paper, spitting it out, pressing and drying the paper to create a new stamp. The image of the found stamp is no longer accessible – but exists as a phantom in the material along with the artist’s own genetic constitution.

Waulking is an exhibition that takes the audience on a journey through materiality and facilitates an investigation of the stories that lie within, as well as the ghosts of its creation. Through the narrative of waulking, the exhibition explores presence – just as much as absence by highlighting the process and labour as just as crucial as the final work exhibited.

Hedvig Bergman (b. 1988, Stockholm) is an artist working with sculpture and installation. Her work is characterized by an enchantment for traditions and the bodily, the volatile, and the eternal. Bergman earned her MFA at Konstfack in 2023, and a BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim, Norway. She has exhibited her work in Sweden and internationally including in Norway, France and Japan and has received both public and private awards and grants for her work. Recent exhibitions include Intuition at Hand, Silvermuseet Arjeplog, Within & Against, Nobel Week Lights, Kungsbro Strand and Slow Stretch, Occasional Gallery.

Isabelle Sahba (b. 1994) is an artist and architect from Stockholm. She holds a BSc in Architecture from the Royal Institute of Technology (2018) and currently studying a BFA in Fine Art at Konstfack. Her practice is characterized by a research-oriented and material-based approach, incorporating element such as text, sculpture, and spatial compositions. Central to her work is the concept of belonging, as she delves into questions surrounding identity, heritage, and connection to place. Recent exhibitions include Afterlife, Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus and Within & Against, Nobel Week Lights, Kungsbro Strand.

Exhibition dates

Opening: Wednesday 5 June, 17:00 – 20:00
Thursday 6 June
Friday 7 June
Artist talk: 8 June, 14:00 – 15:00
Sunday 9 June
Artists: Hedvig Bergman and Isabelle Sahba
Curator: Hannah Ingvoldstad
Supervisor: Yuvinka Medina

25 April – 5 May

The radio wave moves through time and space without human recognition. The invisible waves exist everywhere, and we move through and with them all the time. Some suggest that soundwaves are constant and never stop existing once created. The radio wave is able to carry soundwaves from transmitter to receiver. In these exhibitions on frequency 88.9 FM, the radio wave creates our exhibition space.

Våg Brus presents an exhibition series broadcast from the local radio station transmitting from Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus. The broadcast houses the artworks, allowing the audience to explore them throughout the duration, when the transmission stops the exhibition closes. Thereafter, the artworks become a memory – never to be revisited in full again.

Våg Brus welcomes everyone, and the exhibition stretches all over Stockholm. Tune in from home, your car, the office, the kiosk, or join us for collective listening sessions at Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus this spring.

25 April 17.30-18 Jesper Vesterlund presents the work Of ghosts and memories
28 April 15-15.30 Rebecca Larsson presents the work SYRINX
3 May 17.30-18 Theodore Trottner presents the work Våta Slingor
5 May 15.00-15.30 Mari Mattsson presents the work Tre hörn av minnet

We welcome you to listen, reflect, and enjoy the exhibitions on 88.9 FM, or through the webradio:

https://www.radiosydvast.se/lyssna-pa-webbradio/

About the artists

Mari Mattsson holds an MA in fine arts from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. She often creates site-specific installations that emphasize the visitors movement. Recurring themes explored in her practice are perception, imagination and the concept of time through sound, text and scores.

Rebecca Larsson holds an MA in fine arts from Malmö Art Academy and explores in her practice different techniques and materials, often with language as a starting point. Finding subject matters in literature and often inspired by myths and metaphysics she brings these stories to life.

Jesper Vesterlund holds an MA in fine art from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and works mainly with unheard sounds. Exploring tales and myths of modern times through sounds, he presents histories of the unknown.

Theodore Trottner holds an MA in fine arts from the Royal Institute of Art and an MA in sound art from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. His practice evolves around exploring sounds as ephemeral works of art. Working with site-specific installations and new methods of presentation he provides the visitor an immersive experience, exploring sound as a unique practice of attentive listening.

About the project

Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus is a people’s house located in the south of Stockholm. The house hosts a local radio station, a cinema, exhibition spaces and a library. Medborgarhuset is daily used by hundreds of people from different communities. Their ambition is to create an ecosystem of social, artistic and pedagogical practice that enable conversations, reflection and a democratization of the local area and the city at large. The radio operated within the house usually broadcast local radio focusing on communities active in the nearby area. More information about the house can be found on their website:

www.medborgarhuset.se

Wave Noise is a degree project for the MA in Curating Art at Stockholm University. It is curated by Linnea Wästfelt who, in her curatorial practice, works research-based, often with interventions in the public space and alternative methods of presentation. She holds a BA in fine art photography from Glasgow School of Art and is co-founder of Vava Art Collective. She is currently based in Stockholm

This exhibition is a collaboration between Fine Art students at Konstfack and MA Curating Art students, year one.

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.Antonio Gramsci

The exhibition is developed in the context of a course initiated by Lina Selander for students at Konstfack. The research and work leading up to the exhibition has been generously supported by the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus.

You are invited to embark on a journey exploring the fluid intersections between the spiritual realm, reality, and existence. Throughout the various spaces of Medborgarhuset, the artists invite us to reevaluate our relationship with the unknown. Spirituality, dreaming, and contemplation intertwine, challenging the understanding of our wavering consciousness.

Free entry, no pre-registration required.

Thursday 11 April 18:00 – 22:00 – Vernissage “The Funeral” an evening where we look at the very beginning stages of grief and symbolically say farewell to the world as we know it.

Welcome speech at 18:30
Ritual and speech by Dan Siedell at 18:40
Performance by Cariz Nordlöf at 19:00
Performance by Ib Zakarias at 20:00

Friday 12 April – Movement class by Veronica Bergan “Åsen Skakar” at 15:00 (150/100kr).
Take part in this class at Medborgarhuset which is focused on finding presence and pleasure through movement and begin moving through a sense of absence towards realms of possibility. The class is for everyone regardless of condition or previous experience.

Saturday 13 April – Join us on a somatic walk
A meditative gathering is held by Unn Faleide at 14.00 in the foyer at Medborgarhuset. How can we collectively experience the After Life exhibition in a meditative state?

Sunday 14 April – An artist talk between the artists Cariz Nordlöf, Inês Varandas, Isabelle Sahba and curators Elvira and Carina on the nature of After Life and how it ties into their different artistic practices.

Wednesday 17 April – Finissage “Renewal” at 18.00. In order to close off After Life we gather around water and new life.

The participating artists are Alva Cederholm, Ib Zakarias Knigge, Agnes Magnusson, Cariz Nordlöf, Lovie Peoples, Inês Varandas Pereira, Ljubomir Popovic, Isabella Sahba and Sanna Svensson. The exhibition is co-curated by Unn Faleide, Ruoxi Gao, Carina Hundsdahl, Noel Platts, Elvira K. Wikman and Isa Van den Wouwer.

'Admits One' is a circus. It has three acts – the launch of a limited edition artist booklet, a reading by pierrette Charlotte Keegan, and a film screening of 'Heterotopias' (2022) by artists Anna Heisterkamp and Isaac Tomkin Clarke. Conceptually, it offers a multiplicity of readings into othered spaces – things that exist where they “shouldn’t”; without regard and often as sites of pain. Here is a point of connection with Accelerator’s current exhibition 'Dodge and/or Burn' by Lisa Tan. For Keegan, this is an exploration of a chronic pain condition called endometriosis, while Heisterkamp and Tomkin Clarke explore veins of Foucault’s concept of the same name. Thus 'Admits One' connects these secrets, sanitoriums and the spectacle; for their admittance and in turn concealment.

The event is part of the ongoing collaboration between the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art and the exhibition hall Accelerator. The students create events in connection to themes that Accelerator wishes to highlight in the exhibition programme.

Please join this event on 30 Jan 2024, from 17:00, in the amphitheater of Accelerator Café. The performance by Keegan begins at 17:30 followed by the screening of Heterotopias (2022). 'Admits One' invites viewers to contemplate the intricate interplay between interior and exterior worlds, mirroring the unruly cells of endometriosis and diverse spaces of inhabitance. The booklets are free and wine is for sale at the Cafe.

Credits

Curators: Charlotte Keegan and Nathalie Viruly
Artists: Anna Heisterkamp and Charlotte Keegan
Sound design: Isaac Tomkin Clarke
Mentor: Nina Øverli

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).