Rein In Alva Markusson, Ida Hebsgaard Mogensen, Mara Schwerdtfeger
Group exhibition, project room
Curator: Elvira K. Wikman
Graphic design: Elina Ulén
Opening reception August 27 16.00-18.00
Artist talk August 30 14.30-15.10
Finissage performance August 31 14.00-15.00
Free entry
Imagine laying down in a honey-filled bathtub. The honey sticks to the body, like a second layer of skin. Sticky and slimy. The joy of sweet nectar is suddenly erased by the panic caused by a sense of entrapment. This sticky feeling can arise from other sources too; a clingy lover, a shameful memory, or a trauma. Sticky objects, experiences, and people cling to us, and challenge our sense of autonomy. It is an experience of an outer invasion of the self.
This exhibition brings together the artistic practices of Alva Markusson (SE), Ida Hebsgaard Mogensen (DK), and Mara Schwerdtfeger (AU) and investigates sticky feelings as an impulse that simultaneously call for control and surrender; for reining in and letting go. rein in moves within a dynamic field of tension between discomfort and desire, between the urge to control and release. This oscillation forms a space where emotions rub up against the body, where something feels off, unpleasant, unresolved – sticky.
Through her sculptures Alva Markusson investigates themes of desire through materiality: horse hair, textile, metal, leather, and concrete. She sees these materials as carriers of a symbolic language, each with its own message. Her sculptures serve as phenomenological investigations of our inner and outer landscapes, tracing the subtle ways in which texture, form, and space echo within the body and mind. On the occasion of this exhibition, she will present sculptures as part of a new body of work.
In the performance HUDLØS, dancer Ida Hebsgaard Mogensen, examines the boundary between interior and exterior, where the body – the flesh – serves as the border between self and other. Through her artistic practice she explores the limits of the body; the grotesque and the sublime. HUDLØS is a forty-five minute long solo piece created by Hebsgaard Mogensen in 2025.
As part of HUDLØS, Mara Schwerdtfeger’s sound piece Code Switch will be exhibited. Schwerdtfeger is a composer and curator who plays the viola and collaborates with her laptop to create live performances as well as recorded pieces for film, performance, and dance. Her practice is guided by the shifts of perspective and interaction of rhythms and beings within environments.
Code Switch is a sonic image of the subsurface. Made solely of digitally manipulated contact microphone recordings of surfaces like tree trunks, stones, and throat the piece aims to amplify a perspective that sits within the ground. The title refers to the change of body and verbal language that occurs when in different cultural or social settings and places this terminology onto our relationship with the Earth.
rein in, curated by Elvira K. Wikman, is a degree project within the Curating Art, International Master’s Programme at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University made in collaboration with Färgfabriken.