Artist in studio

In Mohammed Samis ateljé.

Studio visits: Swedish acquisitions

Live on Instagram

7.12 2022

Stockholm

Are you curious about the artistic process? Do you ever wonder how artists work or what the view is like from their studio window? Join us for our exclusive live-streamed studio visits! Together with our curators, we will visit a few of the artists whose works were acquired for the collection in 2021.

During 2022, some of the artists represented in the Moderna Museet collection will broadcast live from their studios in Sweden and globally. Look inside the everyday life and creative processes of artists, and learn more about art and our featured artists!

The artist Sigrid Holmwood is standing in her studio.
In Sigrid Holmwoods studio. Photo: Francis Brady

Sigrid Holmwood

Date

7 December 2022

Language

Swedish

Watch the studio visit on Youtube (in Swedish): Visit Sigrid Holmwood’s studio

Andreas Nilsson, curator, visits Sigrid Holmwood in her studio in Malmö.

Sigrid Holmwood’s (b.1978) work is based on extensive research work on natural color production and how different colonial structures influenced these processes. Holmwood draws attention to how oppression of both indigenous peoples and the peasantry led to a loss of knowledge, not least about plants and their properties.

Sigrid Holmwood was educated in the UK with a PhD in Art from Goldsmiths College, London (2021), and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2002), but is now based in Malmö. She has a persona she calls “The Peasant Painter” which plays on the contrast between paintings of peasants used to construct national romanticism and paintings made by peasants, using colors from local, imported and migrated plant life.

Mohammed Samis in his studio.
Painting is my way of finding the traces of a personal memory. Memories are remarkable, sometimes they are disguised as shadows, objects, smells, or even something banal, without revealing themselves as memories. – Mohammed Sami

Mohammed Sami

Language

English

Watch the studio visit on YouTube (in English): Visit Mohammed Samis studio

Asrin Haidari, curator at Moderna Museet and curator of Swedish Acquisitions: Insights, visits Mohammed Sami in his studio in London.

Mohammed Sami’s autobiographical paintings explore the delayed memories that can be triggered by everyday objects and surroundings. In traditional motifs such as still-lifes, interiors and landscapes, Sami links his own memories of war and trauma in his native Iraq. The suggestive, layered images are detached from the private sphere and tell a bigger story that concerns us all.

Mohammed Sami was born in Bagdad, Iraq, in 1984. He studied drawing and painting at the Institute of Fine Arts, Bagdad, Iraq, in 2005, and emigrated to Sweden in 2007. In 2015, he gained an honorary degree from Ulster University – Belfast School, Northern Ireland. He has an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London (2018). Mohammed Sami lives and works in London and Norrköping.

Mohammed Sami, Joseph's Coat, 2020 Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet © Mohammed Sami
Artist Fatima Moallim sits on a chair in her studio
Fatima Moallim Photo: Joakim Forsgren

Fatima Moallim

Language

Swedish

Watch the studio visit on Instagram (in Swedish): Visit Fatima Moallims studio

Joa Ljungberg, curator at Moderna Museet, visits Fatima Moallim in her studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn i New York.

Fatima Moallim (b. 1992) is a Stockholm-based artist who has the2022 Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Program (IASPIS) residency at the ISCP. Her practice embraces various forms of performance and site-specific designs in art galleries and public spaces, including at Moderna Museet, Marabouparken, Göteborgs Konsthall, on the glass façade at Bonniers Konsthall and in the underground station at Zinkensdamm in Stockholm.

One of Moallim’s methods is to draw straight on the wall, sketching motifs influenced by the immediate surroundings while the work is in progress, and with a line that gradually forms a narrative. The project “Flyktinglandet” consists of several performance and video works, exploring different aspects of her parents’ flight from Mogadishu, Somalia, to Moscow (where Fatima Moallim was born in 1992) and Sweden.

She uses drawing, performance, video and digital media to explore experiences of forced migration, alienation and memories.

Fatima Moallim, Family Album, 2021 Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet © Fatima Moallim
The artist sits and looks at a wooden sculpture.
Julia Bondesson in her studio. Photo: Fredrik Odenius

Julia Bondesson

Language

Swedish

Watch the studio visit on YouTube (in Swedish): Visit Julia Bondessons studio

Andreas Nilsson, curator at Moderna Museet Malmö, visits Julia Bondesson in her studio in Skåne.

Julia Bondesson’s works often portray bodies and body parts charged with beauty and gloom, combining aesthetics with psychology. The carefully carved and chiselled sculptures with occasional scorch marks convey a sense of being exposed and vulnerable.

Bondesson explores the relationship and ties between body and soul. Her sources of inspiration include Chinese philosophy and learning by doing. The sculptures evolve into ambivalent characters – both objects and living beings. And maybe the permanence of the sculptures also reminds us of our own transience.

Julia Bondesson was born in 1983 and lives in north Skåne. She graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2011 and has also studied hand puppetry in Taiwan and art in Japan and Thailand.

Sculpture
Julia Bondesson, Feet, 2018 Photo: Tobias Fischer/Moderna Museet © Julia Bondesson/
Bildupphovsrätt 2021
Valeria Montti Colque in her studio, 2022 Photo: Stefan Wrenfelt

Valeria Montti Colque

Language

Swedish

Watch the studio visit on YouTube (in Swedish): Visit Valeria Montti Colques studio

Annika Gunnarsson, curator at Moderna Museet, visits Valeria Montti Colque in her studio in Stockholm.

The artist Valeria Montti Colque is a storyteller. She builds imaginary worlds full of symbols, combining everyday life with myths, religion and popular culture. Many of her works are collective, using a diversity of media and techniques: drawing, painting, assemblage, installation and performance.

Valeria Montti Colque was born in 1978 in Stockholm, where she lives and works. She graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in 2004. As part of the “Swedish Acquisitions 2021” project, Moderna Museet has added an extensive installation by Montti Colque to the collection.

Photo of installation in room with multi colours and different objects
Valeria Montti Colque, Apu Mamá Height Ojitos de Sal, 2021/2022 Photo: Albin Dahlström / Moderna Museet Bildupphovsrätt 2022