Selma Sjöstedt, Angelica Falkeling, Sara Lindeborg: A Malmö Trilogy: Armaturer

One single scene is told from a number of different perspectives. We recognise this approach from the world of cinema, theatre, literature, but what if we were to present an exhibition this way?

Three artists have been invited to work on one exhibition which will be told in three chapters throughout the spring. Each chapter has a leading voice, yet each chapter is the sum of a collaborative exploration that guides us through the multiple folds that compose a practice. Idiosyncratic, unexpected, inconsistent bare meanings we like. So much more fulfilling than recognisable, safe and deliverable. But as we all know, such an approach to one’s work takes courage and support. So we ask ourselves what kind of art world we want to be part of. How can we act on the structures, and not just the choices. 

The leading voice of the first chapter is Selma Sjöstedt, a voice spoken from a point of stillness. Painting is her language, and traces are her words with which she composes visual rhythms. By waiting and observing she lures the poetics out of the marks left on old canvases. Like an improvised call and response. And like armature, her works made for this chapter act as supporting structures for a collegial dialogue. Responding to her visual rhythms is what Angelica Falkeling and Sara Lindeborg have set out to do forming interwoven sentences that move in and out of each other. Sara Lindeborg’s manuscripts gather fragments on human traces in the New Mexican landscape, while Angelica Falkeling adds a spatial collage of ingredients from their own universe and domestic art practice. And thus, a contamination of the individual practice gives way for the rise of a collaborative endeavour.

We tell each other stories in order to live. We tell each other stories in order to dream and imagine, to let ideas slowly percolate through our minds and shape a larger collective consciousness. Armaturer is the first chapter of A Malmö Trilogy.