A conversation in movement – With Tove Kjellmark and invited guests

12 March 2023

Finissage conversation, 13.00–15.00
Main hall, Färgfabriken

Participants: Tove Kjellmark (artist), Marie Fahlin (choreographer), Linda Hinners (curator for sculpture at Nationalmuseum), Sara Callahan (research in art history) och Louise Chatteli (founder of Sjukhushästen).

The conversation is performed as a guided tour and will last about 60 minutes.

At the finissage for the exhibition The Horse, the Robot and the Immeasurable, we invite you to a conversation in movement on March 12 at 13.00–15.00. The artist Tove Kjellmark has invited Marie Fahlin (choreographer), Linda Hinners (sculpture curator at Nationalmuseum), Sara Callahan (researcher in art history) and Louise Chatteli (founder of Sjukhushästen) to reflect upon a selected work in the exhibition based on their expertise. In the form of an organic display, where we move around the exhibition in parallel with dynamic conversations between the artist, the invited guests and the audience, we want to open up to in-depth perspectives of Kjellmark’s work.

Can we capture movement in sculpture?

Tove Kjellmark’s art is a constant balancing act between stillness and movement. She is basically a trained sculptor but her work has come to challenge the role of the sculptor and the view of sculpture as a fixed and cemented art form. Linda Hinners, curator of sculpture at the Nationalmuseum, brings great knowledge to the subject and a historical perspective on sculpture.

The artist’s interest in movement is not only about physical movement or material transformation, but also the mental movement that sometimes arises within the viewer. Marie Fahlin, who is an active choreographer, has a deep understanding of the body in movement and in relation to space. Fahlin has also written a thesis on the curation of dressage choreography.

Kjellmark’s works also seek the immeasurable and reflect upon the dissolution of bodily boundaries, such as the movement between life and death. Sara Callahan is currently researching photographic movement experiments from the late 1800s to the early 1900s and how they generate meaning in contemporary contexts. Kjellmark’s exhibition is an excellent example of how predecessors such as Muybridge’s work are still relevant.

At the center of Tove Kjellmark’s ongoing research is the horse, to which she has a deep emotional bond. The exhibition invites reflection on the human relationship with the horse and the close interaction that can arise between two beings. Louise Chatteli has rehabilitated and trained traumatized horses for ten years. She also runs the non-profit organization “Sjukhushästen och hans vänner” where she and the horses meet children who are facing their last days in life.

Sculpture by Tove Kjellmark (2022).

A conversation in movement

Marie Fahlin

Is a choreographer and has created around forty works for both the stage and art room, she has also curated several projects and festivals in choreography. She has a PhD from Stockholm’s Konstnärliga högskola with a project on the curation of dressage choreography, which also resulted in the exhibition Centauring at Marabou Park in 2021.

Marie Fahlin is now conducting a three-year research project, The Curative Act, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Linda Hinners

Is curator of sculpture at Nationalmuseum. Her latest research on female sculptors resulted in the exhibition Härligt att vara skulptör at Nationalmuseum in 2022 and the publication Nordic Women Sculptors Formation Visibility Self-Creation. Hinners previously worked as curator and archivist at the Gustavianium in Uppsala and has a PhD from Stockholm University.

Sara Callahan

Is a researcher at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University and Affiliate Fellow at ICI in Berlin Kulturlabor – Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Her ongoing postdoc project examines how photographic movement studies from the late 19th and early 20th centuries generate meaning in different contexts from the latter part of the 19th century to today. In 2022, she published the publication Art + Archive –Understanding the Archival Turn in Contemporary Art at Machester University Press.

Louise Chatteli

Runs the Chatteli Horse Academy, which was founded in 2020 at Sparreholm’s castle stables, where the interaction between horse and rider is the focus. Alongside this, she works with palliative care for children through her non-profit organization “Sjukhushästen och hans vänner”, where she travels with her horses to university hospitals, play therapy departments and Ronald McDonald Houses in Sweden to spread joy to children.