OPEN STUDIO – (p)Art of the Biomass / Janna Holmstedt & Malin Lobell, with guests
Observe, open to the public during these dates:
February 2–8
February 10
February 14–15
February 17–22
Deviations may occur
(p)Art of the Biomass / Holmstedt & Lobell move into Färgfabriken in two stages: first as an exploratory process through Open Studio, and later in the form of an exhibition. During the first months of the year, they install themselves and work through a partially public process within the Open Studio framework, delving into the hidden life that unfolds beneath the ground surface.
The work constitutes the first phase of Holmstedt & Lobell’s ongoing collaboration with Edith Hammer’s Lab and The Soil Chip Project, together with researchers in microbial ecology at Lund University, within the project Windows to the Underground (funded by Formas). Edith Hammer’s Lab has developed a unique method for studying and filming soil-dwelling organisms and fungi without extracting them from their habitat or disrupting the soil ecosystem.
During Open Studio, one of the project rooms becomes a workspace and studio, while in the other they construct an installation, a further development of the work MIKROBio, which is also presented to the public at selected times. This installation functions simultaneously as a stage, film studio, cinema, and laboratory. Through the installation, you are transported into the realm of microbes. A green-screen stage allows you to “shrink” and be projected into microscopic landscapes of soil life. On the projection screen, functioning as a microscope slide, you can dance with nematodes and amoebae. You may also choose to enter a resting state inspired by cryptobiosis: a hidden form of life in which microorganisms can wait for hundreds or even thousands of years for more favourable living conditions.
During the Open Studio period, the project will be further developed and reworked, eventually resulting in an exhibition titled The Carnival of the Underground. Episode 2, in the same project space, opens on 18 April in conjunction with the group exhibition Att slå rot at Färgfabriken.
About (p)Art of the Biomass
(p)Art of the Biomass is an art platform for transdisciplinary collaborations and investigations, initiated by Janna Holmstedt and Malin Lobell. They invite exploratory labs, ecosocial sculptures, and site-based investigations where art, ecology, microbiology, cultivation, and speculative thinking intersect. They have worked together since 2019, from Jordmarknaden initiated by Mossutställningar and Stella d’Ailly, through the art and research project Humus economicus on the role and value of soil in urbanised landscapes, to collaborations with Malmö Art Museum, Gylleboverket, Art Lab Gnesta, and Österängens konsthall. They are members of Den Kollektiva Hjärnan and are also part of the research network The Posthumanities Hub at Linköping University.
About the artists
Malin Lobell is an artist and gardener with extensive experience working at the intersection of ecological practices, art, and society. Her work centres on questions of the politics of cultivation, plant agency, and how humans and other species shape shared living spaces. She has celebrated the soil work of earthworms, woven networks with pine trees, and crawled into a hibernation sack to learn from rotifers. For several years, she explored the idea of the civic garden as a site of both community and resistance, with plants becoming collaborators and teachers. Her visual language moves between conceptual strategies and poetic investigations, often using participatory processes as a method. Lobell is educated at HDK-Valand and is also trained as a professional gardener, a background that shapes her way of combining care, formal sensibility, and critical thinking.
Janna Holmstedt is an artist and researcher with an interest in listening practices and relational ecologies. In her work, she invites walks, events, and sound-based installations that revolve around places, objects, or beings often relegated to the background. She has accompanied dolphins and earthworms, as well as bladderwrack, maize, and cow parsley, to explore human relationships and entanglements with other species. Holmstedt is educated at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts and earned her PhD in Fine Art in 2017. She led the transdisciplinary research project Humus economicus at the National Historical Museums of Sweden (2021–2025, funded by Formas) and is currently active as a researcher at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.