Master's Degree Exhibition from the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts opens at Bildmuseet

In an Exceptional Time is the title of this year’s Master’s degree exhibition from Umeå Academy of Fine Arts at Umeå University, Sweden. It will be inaugurated with an online opening on Saturday, 8 May at 2 pm. The doors to Bildmuseet, the museum of contemporary art and visual culture, will open to visitors on 13 May.

We invite you to participate in a digital press preview on Thursday, 6 May from 10–11 am (R.S.V.P). In addition to this online preview, critics and journalists can book an individual on-site visit to the exhibition.

The final exhibition from the Master’s programme at the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts is a very personal show by young artists who have put all their energy and reflections into an old poetic and narrative system – art – at a time when so many certitudes have started to erode. This exceptional time will be a kind of hidden sub-text of the works presented.

But there is also the trajectory of their individual practice, their interest to discuss materialities and media, such as painting, video or sculpture, their narratives, stemming from the personal and a perception of the world. The approaches are individual, but this does not mean that they put up barriers of separation since they communicate via the exhibited works.

Participating artists: Rakel Bergman Fröberg, Tekla Bergman Fröberg, Hannah Brännström, Joel Danielsson & Louise Öhman, André Fischer, Mrah Gazi, Erica Giacomazzi, Emma Hjelm, Judit Kristensen, Per Nenzelius, Charlotte Ostritsch, Jonatan Pihlgren, Yuri Rusinov (Georgios Lazaridis) and Sandra Wasara-Hammare.

The main tutor and curator of the degree exhibition In an Exceptional Time is Berlin-based artist Ariane Müller, who presently is a guest teacher at the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts. Words from the Curator.

Last week, after being temporarily closed due to the pandemic restrictions, the very welcome decision came that Bildmuseet will be allowed to open its doors to the public on 13 May. Thus there will be a digital opening on Saturday May 8^th as planned, and then in-person visitors will be safely welcomed on-site just a few days later.

“It is fantastic that our graduating Master’s students will have the opportunity to show their degree works to an audience at Bildmuseet,” notes Katrin Holmqvist-Sten, Head of the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts. “It has been a tough year where most teaching and academic supervision has taken place online. The fact that the exhibition can now be personally physically visited is really valuable for these students, whose academic studies have been so adversely affected by the pandemic.”

The degree exhibition In an Exceptional Time runs at Bildmuseet 8–23 May (with online-only visits 8-9 May). Bildmuseet’s opening hours from 13 May and onwards: Thursday–Sunday 12:00–17:00. The museum will be open for online visits during the same hours on Wednesdays.

Press Images
New press images will be added as the artworks and exhibition are completed.

Press Preview on Thursday 6 May at 10 am (online-event)
The fifteen artists will all be participating, along with Katrin Holmqvist-Sten and Ariane Müller from the Academy of Fine Arts and Museum Curator Lisa Lundström, Bildmuseet. Critics and journalists are welcome to contact Bildmuseet for individual on-site visits to the exhibition.

Exhibition Opening on Saturday 8 May at 2 pm (online-event)
Participating from the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts are Katrin Holmqvist-Sten, Ariane Müller, Annika Eriksson, professor of the Master's program. The fifteen artists will connect digitally.

Film Presentation on Sunday 16 May at 2 pm (online-event)
In a series of short films, the young artists talk about their works in the degree exhibition. In this online event, all the videos will be broadcast together.

Guided Tour on Sunday 23 May at 2 pm (digital event)
Lisa Lundström, Museum Curator and project manager at Bildmuseet, gives a tour.

For further information, please contact
Lisa Lundström, Museum Curator, Bildmuseet
lisa.lundstrom@bildmuseet.umu.se, +46 90-786 9512