Europa (still), 1932, Franciszka och Stefan Themerson © Themerson Estate

Antifascism and Queer Expressions in Interwar Eastern Europe

Conversation in the Collection

28.2 2026

Stockholm

Buy ticket

Join a conversation about the political charge of surrealism and its connections to antifascism and queer expression in interwar Eastern Europe. Participants include Moderna Museet’s curator Lena Essling and Stefan Ingvarsson, analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.

With a focus on artists such as Franciszka and Stefan Themerson as well as Toyen, the season’s second Conversations in the Collection focuses on how surrealism has functioned as a language for political opposition and alternative ways of understanding identity, desire and belonging. The conversation takes place in the exhibition “The Subterranean Sky – Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection”.

With Eastern Europe as a starting point, the conversation also highlights the artist Karol Radziszewski, currently featuring the exhibition “The Classroom” at Moderna Museet. In his large installation, stories, materials and oral testimonies that have long and systematically been excluded from established historiographies in Central and Eastern Europe appear.

Antifascism and Queer Expressions in Interwar Eastern Europe

Conversation in the Collection

Date

Saturday 28 February 2026

Time

14.00–15.00

Place

In the exhibition “The Subterranean Sky – Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection”, floor 4

Language

Swedish

Price

170 SEK, 140 SEK for students and seniors (entrance ticket included)
Free for members in Klubb Moderna and other free categories

Buy ticket

The ticket is valid for the entire museum, except for the exhibition “Late Picasso”, which has timed entry slots. Access to “Late Picasso” is subject to availability.

Contact: Alexander Kateb, Curator of Programming Moderna Museet

Stefan Ingvarsson

Stefan Ingvarsson is an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for East European Studies (SCEEUS) and project manager for European Expert Talks on Russia, an EU-funded project, both at the Swedish Institute for Foreign Affairs. He served as Cultural Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy in Moscow from 2015 to 2020. He has previously been artistic director of the Stockholm Literature festival at Moderna Museet and has a background in the publishing industry, public diplomacy and as a cultural writer and literary translator from Polish.

Stefan Ingvarsson was part of the original editorial board of the project DIK Fagazine in Warsaw, which was started and is run by Karol Radziszewski, and has collaborated with the artist on several issues of the magazine.