Black piano with a colorful embroidered piano cover — Anna Casparsson, Ode to Joy (piano cover), n.d. Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet © Anna Casparsson 2026

Salon Anna Casparsson

Performance & music

28.4 2026

Stockholm

The exhibition “The Isle of Bliss” is brought to life through poetry, performance and music, inspired by the salons that Anna Casparsson held in her home, Villa Snäckan. During the evening, artist Stacey de Voe gives a performance lecture on the history of silk thread and pianist Astri Aareskjöld frames the evening with music from various composers.

Salon Anna Casparsson

Performance & music

Date

Tuesday 28 April

Time

18.00–19.30

Place

In the exhibition, “Anna Casparsson – The Isle of Bliss“, floor 4

Language

Swedish

Price

Free of charge, pre-registration required

Contact: Alexander Kateb, Curator of Programming Moderna Museet

Anna Casparsson (1861–1961) spent her days and nights embroidering. She sewed stories with silk thread, and her home, Villa Snäckan, became like a cocoon. All threads have an origin, and just like the myths and fairy tales in Casparsson’s work, silk carries its own stories, stories that have been woven into the fabric of our global economic and political systems.

The performance lecture “Bombyx mori – from cocoon to commerce” by Stacey de Voe is a story about the history of silk. The domestication of the silkworm and the development of the silk industry are analysed through three historical periods when Sweden tried to cultivate silk. What can sericulture tell us about extraction, female-coded work and power? The history of silk is well known, but is often recounted through European colonial writings and Western scientists. What happens when new stories about silk emerge and begin to hatch from their cocoons?

Pianist Astri Aareskjöld frames the evening with music by Robert Schumann, Maurice Ravel and Sergej Rachmaninov, as well as a contemporary work by composer Katarina Leyman. The music follows a dramaturgy that reflects Casparsson’s life and her own salons – from the closed to the eccentric, with elements of nature, work and threads.

Corner of an embroidered bag next to a green stamp depicting a spinner — Detail of Anna Casparsson’s embroidered bag (photo: My Matson/Moderna Museet) and detail of a postage stamp depicting a spinner at a silk weaving workshop in Switzerland (photo: Digital Museum)

Stacey de Voe

Stacey de Voe is a visual artist based in Malmö. Through a research-oriented approach, her practice employs site specificity and the archive to investigate broader issues concerning collective memory, resistance, and friendship, employing installation, moving image, textiles, performance, and printmaking.

Through microhistories, she explores how conventional perceptions of history can be challenged. De Voe’s practice engages deeply with Sweden’s defunct textile industry and its historical relationship to wider discourses of textile politics and feminised labour.

She has presented work at Simian, Skēnē—space for contemporary art, Skånes konstförening, the Latvian National Museum of Art, Oslo Kunstforening, and BAK basis voor actuele kunst, among others.

Photo of Stacey de Voe — Stacey de Voe. Photo: Djoana Gueorguieva

Astri Aareskjold

Astri Aareskjold is a Swedish-Norwegian pianist from Stockholm. She has won prizes in several competitions, including the Stockholm International Music Competition, Ungdommens Musikkmesterskap, and the French Connection Academy. She was a semifinalist in the 2025 Anders Wall Music Prize and has received scholarships such as the Martha Stuhre Scholarship and the Joseph Martin Kraus Scholarship.

Astri is an active soloist and chamber musician, premieres contemporary music, and performs regularly at festivals. She has also participated in theatre productions at Stockholm City Theatre and is involved in interdisciplinary projects. She has recently completed her Master’s studies in piano at Musikhögskolan Ingesund with Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, as well as Erasmus studies in Leipzig at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater under Prof. Pohl.