Taking Root – on Soil Relations and Human Endeavors

Group exhibition, Mail Hall

The exhibition opening takes place on 18 April, during Kulturnatt Stockholm 2026. More information about the opening as well as the exhibition programme will be available soon.

Taking Root is a group exhibition that weaves together questions about soil, migration, displacement, places, and cultivation in various ways. The exhibition ties in with how we humans take care of the earth. Through contemporary artistic practices, it explores how people, plants, ideas, and cultures take root—in the earth, in memory, in language, and in new territories. The exhibition brings together artists who address both the physical and metaphorical act of putting down roots—how to connect to a place, from migrants’ attempts to find a new home to ecological perspectives on how seeds travel, on soil, and on the conditions necessary for taking root. 

Participating artists

Filippa Arrias

Filippa Arrias (b. 1971) works mainly with painting and collage, through which she explores how we perceive time and memory. Among other things, Arrias has focused on her own family history and origins in Suriname through an artistic research project conducted at the Royal Institute of Art with support from the Swedish Research Council. Arrias mixes documented stories, including archival photographs, with personal images and narratives. She moves between different media and layers of materiality, time, and memory processes.

Filippa Arrias was born in Gothenburg and now lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. She was a lecturer in painting at the Royal Institute of Art between 2008—2018, and currently teaches at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design.

Fikret Atay

Video artist Fikret Atay (b. 1976) examines the tensions that arise in conflicts between West and East, military and civilian, tradition and modernity. He does this with a firm grasp of documentary genres and, simultaneously, an expression that is symbolic and fictional. A distinctive feature of Atay’s practice is video works with staged situations and actions. He exploits the boundary between the documentary and the fictional to highlight how often local cultural situations and expressions have global political dimensions of oppression and vulnerability. Recently, Atay has been particularly interested in how inner landscapes and senses are constantly in motion—how we can rethink land, migration, and belonging in relation to technology.

Fikret Atay was born in the border town of Batman, located between Turkey and Iraq. Atay has a Kurdish background and currently lives and works in Örebro, Sweden.

Leone Contini

Leone Contini (b. 1976) works across multiple media, including lecture-performances, installations, texts, drawing, and collective interventions in public spaces. Contini’s research and artistic practice operate at the intersection of anthropology, aesthetics, and politics. Within these fields, he focuses on intercultural conflicts, power dynamics, migrations, and diasporas—how these phenomena affect the anthropological context and the botanical landscapes of the places where he conducts fieldwork. By collecting and experimenting with seeds, soil, and stories, Contini investigates the migrations, coexistences, and histories of different species.

Leone Contini was born in Florence, Italy, and currently lives and works in Tuscany, Italy.  

Gerd Göran

Gerd Göran (b. 1919) has a rich, colorful, and multifaceted artistic practice spanning 90 years. She works primarily in painting and textile art, drawing inspiration from nature and life, often from the place where she once put down her roots: the countryside of Sångshyttan, just outside Hällefors, where she has lived for most of her life. Another important aspect is Göran’s concerns about climate politics. Her work is characterized by a lifelong and joyful creativity, marked by persistent curiosity and a love for the magic of everyday life and art itself. When encountering Göran’s work, an entire artist’s life emerges – powerful, humble, and flourishing.

Gerd Göran was born in Skåre and now lives and works in Hällefors, Sweden.

Thomas Hirschhorn

Thomas Hirschhorn (b. 1957) is best known for his work in public spaces and for the various, simple materials he uses: cardboard, tape, paper, newspaper clippings, and aluminum foil. Hirschhorn often works on a monumental, comprehensive, and intense scale, with enormous installations and collages. A recurring theme in his work is a questioning of the autonomy of a work of art, as well as an assertion of the power of art to move and change us, not least in relation to the Other. Through art, Hirschhorn believes that we can truly meet each other; one to one, as equals. With that in mind, many of Hirschhorn’s works are dedicated to philosophers, writers, and artists whom he himself loves. One being the writer Simone Weil, whom he has engaged with since 2019 in his artistic practice.

Thomas Hirschhorn was born in Bern, Switzerland, and currently lives and works in Paris, France.

Moa Israelsson

Moa Israelsson (b. 1982) works sculpturally with a variety of techniques and materials. With carefully hand-sewn and painted sculptures, Israelsson’s work moves between fiction and reality. Her artistry is characterized by pieces that bear witness to the passage of time, decay, and the human condition. Israelsson often works in silk, paper, and leather—one delicate and fragile, the other durable and tough. Her soft, vulnerable, and rough sculptures evoke feelings of tenderness, strangeness, and at the same time familiarity.

Moa Israelsson was born in Ljungby and currently lives and works in Åkers Styckebruk, Sweden.

Hanna Ljungh

Artist Hanna Ljungh (b. 1974) works primarily with film, photography, sculpture, and installation. In her artistic practice, she has for some time now been focusing on topics related to land, soil, stone, and mountains. Ljungh’s works reflect on and question the thin line between what we call human and non-human forms of existence, and the complex relationships between them. She is also interested in how time and intangible processes and traces can be expressed, on both microscopic and macroscopic levels; on individual bodies, out towards space and beyond.

Hanna Ljungh was born in Washington DC, USA, and currently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Daryna Mamaisur

In her practice, Daryna Mamaisur (b. 1991) combines artistic research, filmmaking, and photography. Central to her work are transformations of landscapes and public spaces in relation to visual culture, memory, and political ecology. Mamaisur often combines different media and approaches that go beyond traditional documentary films, including hybrid formats, performative elements, and archival material. She is interested in poetic and author-driven film that is also rooted in everyday life, illuminating complex stories and emotions through everyday experiences. In recent years, Mamaisur has addressed themes of migration, exile, and home, as well as the fragility and insufficiency of language in expressing the realities of war.

Daryna Mamaisur was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and currently lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.

Jumana Manna 

Focusing on the body, land, and materiality, Jumana Manna (b. 1987) explores how power is articulated in relation to colonialism and the histories of place. She examines the tension between modernist traditions of categorization and preservation, and the unruliness and potential of destruction—as part of life and renewal. These paradoxes in conservation practices are something Manna often engages with, particularly in the fields of architecture, agriculture, and law. In recent years, Manna has gained international acclaim for films that use documentary and fictional elements to depict complex geopolitical conditions and migrations; of people, land, climate, and seeds.

Jumana Manna was born in New Jersey, USA, and currently lives in Berlin, Germany, while also working from Jerusalem, Palestine.

Hiroko Tsuchimoto

Hiroko Tsuchimoto (b. 1984) is a visual and performance artist with a participatory practice on both stage and in the public realm. Her projects often address Western dichotomies and constructions of otherness. In her practice, Tsuchimoto incorporates dialogues, drawing, walking, and gardening, which she develops together with human as well as more-than-human collaborators. Recently, she has been working to investigate and unfold colonial notions and imperial violence through the history of gardens. Tsuchimoto is also interested in preservation and collection through the senses and memories—how, for example, a plant can take root in a person.

Hiroko Tsuchimoto was born in Sapporo, Japan, and currently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.