30.01-02.02.2025 Accelerator (SE)
THE FLESH REMEMBERS is an intervention taking place in the staircase of Accelerator from the 30th of January to the 2nd of February 2025. 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 The Time of Our Lives, occupying Accelerator’s exhibition spaces, where transforming identity and the shedding of skin are intimately bound, each caught in a process of change.
On this occasion, a publication was 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 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.”
THE FLESH REMEMBERS is a collaborative project between the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University and Accelerator. The project is co-curated by Elvira K. Wikman, Isa Van den Wouwer, and Unn Faleide.
Graphic design by Elina Ulén.
Images by Rickard Kårevall and Lanah Verbraeken.
(self-)encounters
11.04-24.05.2025 de boer gallery (BE)
The group exhibition (self-)encounters opens on April 11th at de boer gallery Antwerp, uniting the artistic practices of Dóra Benyó, Sara Carter, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, Angyvir Padilla, and Meri Toivanen. Most welcome to join us at the opening between 19 and 22h, in the presence of the artists.
(self-)encounters investigates the ways in which we perceive, shape, and articulate our sense of self, whether revealed through inward gazes, or, alternatively, through interrelations and interdependencies. The exhibition lays bare these contrasting angles, guiding us to introspection in their own distinct ways, while alluding to the deeper implications they may carry. In Edward Young's words, we seek to encounter and untangle the ‘stranger’ that quietly resides within us. While seemingly autonomous and self-contained, the self is profoundly entangled with the socio-cultural context we navigate and the relational beings who surround us. In this vein, the artists contemplate their relationships to national identities and ancestral memories. Reflecting on cultural ties as an extension of the self, we come to understand how our past—and our longing for it—shapes us in the present.
Collective bodies hold intricate bonds; whereas these webs of relationships can offer us mutual commitment, emotional synchronicity and a sense of reciprocity and alignment, they may also entrap us in a tangle of imbalanced power dynamics and interdependencies. Rooted in this relational nature of the self, each of us is integral to a social fabric, yet in which the barriers between individuals may merge or dissolve entirely.
Graphic design by Elvira K. Wikman.
11.04-17.04.2024 Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus (SE)
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.” - Antonio Gramsci
In light of the rapid changes of the world, Afterlife explores the fluid intersections between the spiritual realm, reality and existence. Nine Stockholm-based artists are mapping the emerging topographies of the unknown at Hagerstensåsens Medborgarhus. Throughout the various spaces of Medborgarhuset, the artists invite us to reevaluate our relationship to the unknown. Collectively exploring liminal spaces, we process the loss of a world in slow collapse. Spirituality, dreaming and contemplation tie into one another, challenging our understanding. How can we resiliently and compassionately navigate the landscape of the here and beyond?
The exhibition is a collaboration between Fine Art students at Konstfack and MA Curating students at Stockholm University. The research and work leading up to the exhibition has been generously supported by the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Hägerstensåsens Medborgarhus.
Participating artists are Alva Cederholm, Ib Zakarias Knigge, Agnes Magnusson, Cariz Malekian Nordlöf, Lovie Peoples, Inês Varandas Pereira, Ljubomir Popovic, Isabelle Sahba and Sanna Svensson.
Afterlife is co-curated by Unn Faleide, Ruoxi Gao, Carina Hundsdahl, Noel Platts, Elvira Wikman and Isa Van den Wouwer.
Graphic design and visual identity by Elina Ulén.
Installation images by Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
Previously, she has realised projects both individually and as one-third of the curatorial collective gutter, consisting of collaborators Unn Faleide and Elvira K. Wikman, at art spaces such as Accelerator (Stockholm) and de boer gallery (Antwerp). Alongside this, she writes curatorial texts, artist statements, and essays that delve into curatorial ethics and the fluctuating cultural landscape.