Seated person with a mask over their face. — Claude Cahun, Self portrait (kneeling, naked with mask), 1928 From Jersey Heritage Archive. Photo: Jersey Heritage Archive

Conversation in the Collection: Rituals of Desire

6.6 2026

Stockholm

Join a conversation on identity and embodiment in the exhibition “The Subterranean Sky – Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection”, with the author and professor Mara Lee and the artist, filmmaker and artistic researcher Ester Bergsmark. The conversation is moderated by the exhibition’s assistant curator, Corina Oprea.

Conversation in the Collection: Rituals of Desire

The Performing Body Between Control and Surrender

Date

Saturday 6 June 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

Contact: Alexander Kateb, Curator of Programming Moderna Museet

Across twentieth-century surrealist and post-surrealist practices, identity and corporeality are treated as fluid and contested – an approach that resonates in a present where the body is once again drawn into political struggle, regulated, exposed, and mobilised within resurgent nationalist, conservative, and biopolitical frameworks.

Within the exhibition “The Subterranean Sky – Surrealism in the Moderna Museet Collection”, this conversation brings together Mara Lee, whose work explores the relation between language and power, and Ester Martin Bergsmark, working across film and performance. The conversation is moderated by Corina Oprea, Assistant Curator of the exhibition, and unfolds between the rooms “Desire” and “Automatism”, where questions of subjectivity emerge.

Beginning from the works on view, the discussion traces how these concerns take form across different artistic positions, including works by Claude Cahun, Rebecca Horn and Tariq Kiswanson.

The conversation turns to how subjectivity is negotiated through collective rituals and relations. In this sense, surrealism appears not only as a historical reference, but as a method for holding open forms of life.

Medverkande

Corina Oprea

Corina Oprea is a curator, researcher, and editor working at the intersection of contemporary art, decolonial methodologies, and performance. She explores how art can surface overlooked histories and foster collective reflection and shared knowledge.

She is currently IASPIS Guest Curator and co-curator of the Romanian Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Oprea has held curatorial roles at Moderna Museet and Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture. She was Managing Editor of L’Internationale Online and Artistic Director of Konsthall C. She co-edited Climate: Our Right to Breathe (2022) and holds a PhD from Loughborough University.

Mara Lee

Mara Lee is a poet and author, and Professor of Fine Art, specializing in art history and theory at Konstfack.

Lee’s body of work spans novels, poetry, and essays. Her most recent poetry collection, Min tunga moder (2025), was awarded the 2026 Winter Prize by Samfundet De Nio.

She is also active as a researcher, currently working on a project entitled “Another After: The Essay at the End of Time”, investigating how human and natural temporalities intersect and may be understood within art and literature. She also leads Konstfack Writers, an advanced course in creative and artistic writing.

Ester Bergsmark

Ester Bergsmark is an artist, filmmaker and artistic researcher. Her work moves between experimental film, fiction and performative screenings, within a transfeminist and queer field, where desire, sensuality and tactile ways of seeing open up embodied ways of experiencing the world.

In the artistic research project “voice under” (SKH, 2023), which was also presented at Accelerator, the project explored how film can deepen bodily listening and sensory presence.

Her films include “Nånting måste gå sönder”, “Pojktanten”, “Maggie vaknar på balkongen” and “Smågodis, lite våld och mycket katt”. Her latest film, “En ljuvlighet från ingenstans”, had its world premiere at CPH:DOX 2026 and its Swedish cinema premiere this autumn.