• Spoiled Image - Photography Unbound at Konstnärshuset

    Written by Natalia Muntean

    In Spoiled Image, photographers Sofia Runarsdotter and Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole surrender their archives, professional and personal, artistic and accidental, to reimagining. Stripped of original intent, their images mesh and collide, freed from categories like photojournalism, fashion, or private snapshots. Here, a forgotten self-portrait, a celebrity snapshot, or a Tokyo train sequence demand attention not for what they were, but for what they are: singular, unresolved, and electric in their new dialogue. Curated by Ashik Zaman, the exhibition is part of a broader focus on contemporary photography and runs from May 10 to June 7 at SKF/Konstnärshuset. What happens when we stop labelling images and simply let them speak?

    Sofia Runarsdotter

    Natalia Muntean: Your Girl Battle series captures raw, physical tension between women. In Spoiled Image, how does this visceral approach translate when your images are divorced from their original narrative context?
    Sofia Runarsdotter:     Girl Battle is a personal project, photographed in my home village. From the outset, the selection and presentation of the photographs in the Girl Battle series were intended to be experienced both as a whole and as singular photographs. I did the selection together with curator Ashik Zaman. Our aim was for each final image to be so powerful that it could stand alone, independent of its original context. In this exhibition, the photograph Spider is shown in a new context, which brings fresh energy and opens it up to new interpretations. I believe that change and transformation are positive forces. The motif, to me, represents something far beyond sport.

    NM: The exhibition pulls images from your personal and professional archives, even snapshots never meant to be shown as art. How did this process of recontextualization change your relationship to your work? Were there photographs that surprised you by gaining new meaning when freed from their original purpose?
    SR:     I have an archive spanning over two decades, comprising approximately 300,000 photographs (though that figure is admittedly an estimate). These images were captured with a variety of cameras and stored across multiple formats: CDs, hard drives, and negatives. When Ashik invited Diana and me to do this exhibition, I anticipated the complexity of the process. The first step was to make a preliminary selection, a process that revealed how profoundly my way of seeing and reading photographs has evolved.
    One particular photo stands out: a self-portrait taken in Slovenia in 2005. What struck me was how the passage of time had recontextualised the image. For me, it is saturated with personal memory, so much so that I could barely recall taking it. Suddenly, I was confronted not with a photograph, but with a younger version of myself gazing back. I found myself wondering: Could this image hold meaning for someone else? Might it resonate beyond my narrative?
    This experience repeated itself with numerous photographs - images made in passing, never intended to be anything more than fragments. In that sense, the act of stepping back became essential. It was a relief, even a necessity, to allow a curator to engage with the work from a fresh perspective, unburdened by my associations.

    NM: The title Spoiled Image suggests a corruption or subversion of expectations. What does “spoiled” mean to you in this context? Is it about disrupting the hierarchies of photography (art vs. commercial vs. personal), or is it more about the viewer's encounter with an image that refuses easy categorisation?
    SR:     I find it liberating when images are allowed to be seen simply for what they are - photographs in their own right, without being forced into predefined categories. Having worked in the space between art and photojournalism, I’ve often witnessed how powerful images, especially those by colleagues in similar fields, remain unseen because they don’t fit neatly into institutional or disciplinary frameworks. There was simply no room for them, no “appropriate” category.
    With Spoiled Image, those boundaries are loosened. The images are no longer judged by conventional hierarchies or expectations, but encountered on their own terms. That openness allows for a greater generosity toward the image - a richer, more inclusive space of reception. In that sense, it becomes almost like a manifesto: a call to recognise the value of photographs that resist being pinned down.

    NM: Does the Girl Battle image change meaning when separated from the full series and shown next to Diana’s work?
    SR:     I believe that when placed in dialogue with Diana’s archive, the Girl Battle image Spider gains a new and unexpected energy- one that I fully welcome. This kind of interplay has been a defining and enriching aspect of the entire process. It opens the work to new interpretations and connections that wouldn't have emerged within the original series alone.

    NM: Were there old or forgotten photos that suddenly made sense in this exhibition?
    SR:     They were, indeed. One example is a photograph I took in Tokyo in 2008, during a freelance assignment for various magazines. While going through my negatives, I suddenly came across a sequence from a train ride in Tokyo, images I had never seen before. And yet, as I looked at them, I began to recall taking the photo. Or did I? It's strange, perhaps I only imagined capturing that moment, projected the memory onto the image itself. The line between memory and imagination can blur so easily when revisiting old work. Ashik was immediately drawn to it. It’s just three exposures from that trip, separate from my digital files made for work, but they carry a distinct energy. There’s something timeless about watching the two children in motion, suspended as if flying. In a way, it mirrors the exhibition itself: a journey through time, fragments, and rediscovery.


    Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole

    Natalia Muntea: Your work often documents Black diasporic communities. In this show, do these documentary images transform when displayed as fragments divorced from their sociopolitical context?
    Diana Agunbiade-Kolawole:     I think in the company and context, the images hold up and produce more questions than offer the expected resolution answers. My work is centred around lived experiences and as a Black woman in the West, making work on the spectrum of banality and sensationalism of existence, everything I do is political, even when they are placed out of context. To be impartial is also a political stance. I think the images individually may come under higher scrutiny because of this. The controversial scenario here is that Sofia Runarsdotter and I allowed this re-contextualisation to happen.

    NM: Spoiled Image pulls images from your personal and professional archives, even snapshots never meant to be shown as art. Were there photographs that surprised you by gaining new meaning when freed from their original purpose? 
    DAK:     Yes, the image of David. It is a full frame black and white portrait of my cousin flexing his muscles. We were at my grandmother’s place in the countryside in the height of summer in August. We often teased each other when we were all together;  he was teased for being the shortest of all, even though he is the eldest. He was posing to show he was the strongest. I returned to the photograph and printed it together with the front image three years later. I was drawn to the two photographs, but I had no context in which to exhibit them.  It just makes sense in this show, and it was one of the images Ashik, the curator, really connected with. In this exhibition, David becomes eye candy, and the image is transformed into a seductive image.

    NM: The title Spoiled Image suggests a corruption or subversion of expectations. What does “spoiled” mean to you in this context? Is it about disrupting the hierarchies of photography (art vs. commercial vs. personal), or is it more about the viewer’s encounter with an image that refuses easy categorisation? 
    DAK:     I think it is more about the encounter. The first image one is greeted with in the show is a photograph of Pharrell Williams that I took when I was 16 years old. It’s a cool image of a celebrity. It’s not the kind of work I am associated with in Sweden. There are also very personal family photographs that could be included in a retrospective or some sort but they would never be presented side by side. It is difficult to decide whether I feel there are hierarchies within my images; it is closer to whether I like them or not, if there is technical competency and other experiences I had when working with the images.   

    NM: A lot of your work tells important stories. When those images are shown without explanation, do you worry people might miss the point, or do you like the mystery? 
    DAK:     I have used titles to help nudge the viewers in the right direction, but I think the viewers often enter and engage with their own lived experiences. Therefore, it is inevitable that they will read the images as they would like to, and engage with their own perspectives. As I have already experienced when we were making the selections for the show. It is also interesting for me as a photographer to have those interpretations of my work.

    NM: The exhibition title suggests breaking the rules. Did you include any photos you normally wouldn’t show? Maybe something too personal or not “perfect” enough?
    DAK:     There are, for sure, some images I would not have shown in this way. I wanted to be as open-minded and allow Ashik to deliver his vision. When I produce work,  I already know the print size and output elements, as they have a great impact on how the work will be in the end. In this case, some of the size choices are not technically perfect in the traditional photographic way, and I like that. The elements are pushed to their limits; there is too much noise and grain, and that is quite fun. Very liberating. There is a self-portrait that was maybe on MySpace, which ended up in the show. Whilst I also had to find solutions for images that were digitised a long time ago, where I don’t know where the original negatives are. Naturally, I would have edited them out, but in this show, they are present.

    Photos by Sissela Jensen

  • Månvarv: Lotta Törnroth’s Dialogue with Loss

    Written by Natalia Muntean

    Lotta Törnroth’s exhibition Månvarv at Konstnärshuset explores grief, memory, and the lingering presence of loss following her father’s death. Through photography, she reflects on absence, particularly through images of her mother, who evolved from a reluctant subject to a central figure in the work. An intimate installation features a photograph of Törnroth with her father, a “lens lice” who loved the camera. The moon, captured annually since his passing, becomes a recurring motif, symbolising both solace and continuity. Curated by Koshik Zaman, the exhibition is part of a broader focus on contemporary photography, together with Spoiled Image, and runs from May 10 to June 7.

    Natalia Muntean: The exhibition centres on your annual tradition of photographing the full moon, which started as a way to cope with your father’s impending death. Has the act of photographing the moon shifted from distraction to something else? 
    Lotta Törnroth:     It has been a shift from distraction to something I really need to do, almost like an obsession. Photographing the moon has become a treasure to me, almost more important than going to my father’s grave.

    NM: From what I gathered, in the exhibition, your father appears directly in only one photograph, yet his presence lingers elsewhere, through your mother, the moon, or the “spirit” mentioned in the text. How did you decide what to exclude from the visual narrative? 
    LT:     My father is all over the exhibition, as you say, but I decided to present only one image of him in this show. It’s a photograph of the two of us together, and this image is crucial for the narrative of the exhibition, so I chose to let it shine on its own.

    NM: Your mother, initially reluctant, became a recurring figure in the project. What dynamic were you trying to capture through her? Did her role change after your father’s death, and did the camera alter your relationship with her?
    LT:     I started photographing her at the same time as my father. In the beginning, I was inspired by Freud and the theory of psychological projection. But photographing her has always felt more violent, and when it became clear that it was my emotions I wanted to show through her, I focused on my father. Then, when he died, something happened. After a while, she was happier, and I saw her through the camera in a different way. Which also made those photographs lighter and more playful.

    NM: You’ve committed to photographing the moon annually for the rest of your life. Has the ritual itself become a form of dialogue with your father, or does it serve another purpose now? 
    LT:     I write in my book Lunar Cycles that I photographed the moon to show it to my father. I know how much he would have loved to see it. And I find the act of photographing is a way of returning to that feeling I had at first. That act is in my body, not so much in the framed photograph.

    NM: Are there moments of grief you couldn’t photograph, or chose not to? What did the medium fail to capture, and how did you navigate that absence?
    LT:     Yes, many times, it has been many scenes I wanted to photograph that I wasn’t brave enough to capture. There have also been times when I did take photos, but I failed with the exposures. I always photograph with analogue medium format or large format, and many things can go wrong. But that is also what I love about photographing with analogue film, the images that did not get exposed are still in my mind. They become memories, and sometimes that is the best image.

  • photography Sandra Myhrberg

    Saloum, 2024.
    indigo, marigold, rust and terracotta on linen
    190 x 130 cm
    photography Gerhard Kassner courtesy of the artist
    and Galerie Nordenhake Stockholm AB

    Stockholm Art Week: Ayan Farah Lets the Materials Speak

    Written by Natalia Muntean by Zohra Vanlerberghe

    “I’m not preserving materials,” says Ayan Farah, “I’m extending their histories.” Farah's art lives in the space between memory and transformation. Using natural pigments, weathered textiles, and geological traces, her work embraces the poetry of process, with rust, indigo, and clay becoming active collaborators. As she prepares for her upcoming exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake during Stockholm Art Week 2025, Farah discusses imperfection as liberation, slowness as resistance, and why every artwork is a seed for the next.

    Natalia Muntean: Your work often incorporates materials with deep histories: antique linens, sitespecific clays, or indigo from Senegal. How do you navigate the tension between preserving these material histories and transforming them into something new?

    Ayan Farah:     In an abstract sense, tension is where the work happens, parallel to this I try not to think of it as tension, but as a continuum. I’m interested in the idea of material memory, how something seemingly still can hold a geography, a weather and a body. Transformation then becomes a way of listening. It’s not about controlling the outcome, it’s about letting something emerge through the process.

    My process isn’t about preserving them intact but about extending their histories. By working with them, soaking, staining, and layering, I’m allowing new stories to emerge. It’s not a transcendence but a continuation, one that acknowledges both the origin and the transformation. This method not only grounds my work in specific landscapes but also raises questions about the geopolitical and environmental implications of sourcing and utilising these materials. The process in itself draws attention to these materials and sites.

    NM: You describe your works as “questions” rather than statements. Which artists, writers, or thinkers have influenced this open-ended approach? Are there non-artistic sources that shape your practice?

    AF:     Writers like Édouard Glissant have influenced me, especially his ideas around opacity and relation. I’m drawn to thinkers who allow for multiplicity, for fragments rather than totalities. Artists and writers who move in the space between the visible and the invisible, repetition and differences. Roni Horn and Walter De Maria’s sensitivity to scale and silence, René Daumal’s ascent toward the unknown - these resonate deeply. Their work doesn’t resolve, it opens. I tend to navigate towards non-linear systems of knowledge, how something can be both grounded and speculative, rigorous and ephemeral. I’m interested in the natural sciences, geology, botany, and meteorology. The way sediment layers tell time or how rust records air and salt.

    NM: You embrace irregularities, blurred photography, “mistakes” in tie-dye, frayed edges. Is there a beauty in decay or incompleteness that feels particularly urgent in today’s culture of perfection?

    AF:     There’s a kind of freedom in relinquishing control, especially in a world preoccupied with polish and permanence. I’ve come to understand imperfection not as failure, but as honesty. The blurred line, the uneven tone and the under-processed. What’s incomplete is often what triggers my interest. I'm drawn to moments where a linear form begins to dissolve, these are places where time becomes visible. This does not mean I’m not intrigued by the opposite, but I still want to leave space for what’s unresolved.

    NM: Your works often involve slow processes: growing plants for dyes, weathering fabrics, or waiting for rust to form. How does the slowness of your practice challenge or enrich your relationship with the art world’s fast-paced demands?

    AF:     Slowness allows me to step out of the linear time of production and into something more cyclical, more attuned to natural rhythms. The art world can be urgent but my process insists on waiting, on listening. That space, where materials change at their own pace, becomes the work itself.

    When I wait for rust or for dye to deepen in the fabric, I’m attuning myself to forces beyond my control. This time is full of potential as I trust in this natural rhythm that is often tied to the seasons. I adapt my work to it and in the process allow new ideas to grow. There is always another part of the process to hold my attention in the in-between hours.

    NM: You’ve described your practice as experimental, where “each work is a seed for another.” How do you anticipate this cyclical process evolving for your upcoming exhibition in Stockholm? Are there unresolved questions from Seeds that you’re carrying forward?

    AF:     Seeds opened up new material relationships that are still unfolding. Certain clays I only just started working with and other materials have resurfaced. I’m currently integrating new elements of embroidery while further developing abstraction, allowing larger fields of “quietness” in each work. Working with diptychs and twin works that reference each other. I tend to work through a spectrum of techniques and pigments and this hasn’t changed.

Pages