“An Act of Attention”: Guided Tour

Iris Millot directs our attention to her great-aunt Hélène, a former activist in the Women's Liberation Movement. The traces she left behind are presented alongside an anonymous archival image taken from one of her notebooks. Hélène is never fully visible; her life takes shape instead through objects, spaces, and everyday details, composing a portrait through her absence.

Ela Polkowska’s attention turns to the body. The title of her series, Firmly Pinch the Skin Together, refers to a medical gesture in which touch can be both a source of discomfort and care. The body is approached indirectly, through objects that acquire the qualities of skin: vulnerability, tactility, and the marks of contact.

In Sabbia e Bronzo, Massao Mascaro turns to the Mediterranean coastline, taking his ancestral history and the Riace Bronzes as a starting point. Traveling through the landscape, his attention rests on fragments and objects. Bronze endures, while the sand is in perpetual motion. Between the two, plastic emerges as a contemporary counterpoint. Through these materials, the landscape becomes a place where traces are preserved, transformed, and abandoned.

The work of Salad Hilowle questions which presences are recognized in history and which are left in the shadows. Drawing on his Somali heritage and that of the African diaspora in Sweden, he draws our attention to Black figures long present in Swedish cultural history, yet often relegated to the margins of collective memory. In Nätdragande Morian, a sculpture wrapped in a sarong was photographed and then transposed into a tapestry. Associated with a certain historical prestige, the tapestry gives it a new presence within a visual tradition from which Black figures have often been absent.

Tom Hallgren’s portraits place us face-to-face with three young men. While a stereotypical representation of masculinity might emphasize strength, Hallgren favors vulnerable intimacy. The proximity of the faces invites us to question our position as viewers and the relationship established through the gaze. What can a photo reveal about another person, and what remains beyond our reach?

Theo Elias dwells on photography itself and the relationship it maintains with reality. Using darkroom processes, collages, installations, and spray paint, he transforms his images layer by layer. For him, photos must be activated by these interventions, each alteration causing the image to oscillate between representation and fiction. Black and white photographs of Nordic environments sit alongside images of saturated red poppies. This fragile flower evokes beauty and passion, grief and death. In this movement between reality and fiction, his photographic practice becomes a way to return to memory and work through it.

With Marguerite Bornhauser, materiality takes another direction. The intensity of colors and light amplifies the world she photographs, giving it an almost dreamlike dimension. Some films are developed in seawater and marked by salt, allowing elements of the landscape to be inscribed directly into the photographic process. Her images transform the world while simultaneously preserving its physical traces, offering us both a tangible link to the landscape and a feeling of something that escapes us.

Practical information:

Guided tour in English

Free admission, no reservation required