Congratulations to the five projects selected for our Work-in-Progress open call!

We extend our warmest congratulations to the five projects selected for further development within the framework of Smålandstriennalen’s open call for exploratory work. These artistic studies will take shape during the summer of 2025—through workshops, experiments, conversations, and prototypes—with the potential to be developed into full-scale works or events for the 2026 triennial. Follow us on Instagram for updates from the selected projects:

Bodil Göransson, Anna Sanne Göransson, Sixten Sanne Göransson

Project: Rävemåla – Generation to Generation

Since 1979, our family has cared for an 1800s farmhouse in the village of Rävemåla, southern Småland. With no running water or internet, the house offers something increasingly rare—time, silence, and space for reflection. Over the years, it has hosted writing residencies, international artist exchanges, and craft camps. In summer 2025, we want to host a four-day multidisciplinary craft camp, welcoming both beginners and experienced makers of all ages. Workshops range from basket weaving and embroidery to working with clay, papier-maché and plant materials. The project explores embodied knowledge in a time of digital abstraction, asking what stories, techniques, and social structures are lost when the body is no longer central to daily life. Using the place itself as a framework, the camp fosters intergenerational exchange and hands-on learning. This is not about nostalgia or resistance to the future, but about cultivating a slower, more grounded preparedness—through shared practice, community, and presence.

Karolina Stenström

Project: Ödestrådar (Threads of Fate)

Ödestrådar aims to create an alternative history of Hultsfred—a counter-narrative built from imagination, complexity, care, and resistance. The project consists of three parts: a fanzine titled A Planet of One’s Own, a series of textile banners mounted in welded iron frames, and participatory sound-based music with choreography. The works will be shown at a nontraditional exhibition site, possibly the old military grounds or abandoned slaughterhouse area. The banners continue from my earlier work Slightly Corrected Municipal Coat of Arms, combining knitting’s history of preparedness and protest with present-day storytelling. The goal is to gather unheard voices, listen to slow hope, and weave new “threads of fate” that resist collapse. I believe a society without imagination is not a democratic one. This pre-production phase will be used to test forms and forge collaborations with local artists and communities, laying the groundwork for a full presentation in summer 2026.

Prachi Patil & WRECK Collective

Project: OROSDJUR

OROSDJUR is an exploratory and participatory art project that creates a living, growing sculpture in collaboration with children and the local community in Småland. Rooted in the theme “ORO – Art, preparedness, and resistance,” the project investigates how anxiety can be transformed into artistic material through collective action, sound, movement, and growth. The sculpture, inspired by the Norse Midgard Serpent, grows into a mythic creature as participants attach their worries in the form of whispers, drawings, and notes. Through interaction with sound and nature—using plants, wind chimes, and soundscapes—OROSDJUR becomes a symbol of healing and resistance. A pre-production phase in Värnamo in September 2025 includes workshops, prototyping, and community engagement. OROSDJUR is not only an artwork, but a method for collective care, emotional preparedness, and myth-making, to be further developed for Småland Triennial 2026.

Joe Cave

Project: Vägmärken (Markings)

Vägmärken is a project that transforms the esoteric poetry of former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld into contemporary songs. Performed by members of the Näsby Choir and international guest artists, the songs explore themes of personal doubt, spiritual resilience, and geopolitical transformation. Accompanied by organ and electronics, the music reflects on Hammarskjöld’s inner world and places it in dialogue with today’s digital and social anxiety. The 2025 pre-production phase includes composing and recording two songs with one local and one international singer. The performances will be documented to prototype both a live concert and a sound installation format for the 2026 Triennial. Vägmärken invites audiences to hear history’s private voices as echoes of our current global uncertainties—and to reimagine the voice as both an individual and collective instrument.

Takako Takeuchi

Project: Across the Border – A Temporary Space

This project is a preparatory study for a poetic video and installation artwork using the traditional Japanese paper form shide, often used in Shinto culture to mark sacred boundaries. In 2025, I will walk through the landscapes of Småland to find sites where a sense of stillness or holiness can be experienced. Temporary installations of shide will be placed in nature and documented on film to capture their interaction with light, wind, and surroundings. I also aim to collaborate with a musician who plays shō, a traditional Japanese mouth organ, and explore sound as part of the atmosphere. A community workshop is planned, where participants will create shide together while reflecting on the question: What is a boundary? The project quietly explores the invisible lines between nature, culture, memory, and human relations, laying the foundation for a full-scale work during the 2026 Småland Triennial.