News
Our travelling exhibition has come to an end with a truly wonderful closing at Konstfrämjandet Skåne’s gallery St. Gertrud in Malmö.
After three strong iterations—Markaryd, Stockholm, and most recently Malmö—Konst ur Småland has reached its endpoint. It is tempting to frame this as a conclusion, but in practice it marks a shift: something has been set in motion that resists easy summary.
The journey has made clear what is actually at stake when art is produced, presented, and shared within a regional framework—grounded in a specific geography, infrastructure, and public, rather than in a metropolitan institutional norm—while at the same time insisting on participation in a broader public sphere. Not as a representation of “Småland,” but as an active, displacing force within the ongoing conversation around anxiety, contemporaneity, place, and belonging.
In Malmö, this took on a particular intensity. Afrang Nordlöf Malekian and Tove Möller activated the space through VMA—a work that did not settle for commenting on preparedness and threat, but physically invoked alternative forms of community. Their sculpture and performance did not function as illustration, but as a ritual renegotiation of the situation.
Beyond the exhibitions themselves, the project also expanded through a series of side programs that carried the conversation further. Many thanks to Olle Helin for the event and role-playing project KF-Huset, and to Saba Moini for Sideways—two initiatives that made it clear that this kind of process cannot be contained within the limits of an exhibition space.
And, as a cherry on top: On Hospitality by Behzad Khosravi Noori and Magnus Bärtås has been acquired for the collection of Moderna Museet. This is not merely a validation of the work’s quality, but an indication that the questions it raises—around hospitality, labour history, and power—resonate far beyond the context in which it was first presented.
Finally: thank you to all participating artists—Juan-Pedro Fabra Guemberena, Behzad Khosravi Noori, Magnus Bärtås, Petra Lindholm, Sara Wallgren, Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, and Tove Möller—for works that have truly set a high standard.
And to everyone who followed, visited, participated, and supported the project: it is in dialogue with you that it actually takes shape. See you again at the triennial!