Drain the Öresund highlights contemporary art in the Öresund region from an absurdist perspective

The jubilee year 2025, marking Malmö Konsthall's 50th anniversary, begins with the exhibition Drain the Öresund. The exhibition brings together artists living on both sides of the Öresund to examine the region as a site of sociocultural, ecological, technological, economic, and political entanglements. The exhibition opens on February 8th, with a press preview on Thursday, February 6th, at 11am.

Using local and regional narratives as a starting point, the exhibition Drain the Öresund explores broader global movements and processes – migration, climate change, economic development – to uncover the connections between fact and fiction, progress and decline, the self and the world. Many of the artworks highlight circuits of exchange and explore the hopes and failures of mass social transformation, digging into the increasingly muddy relationships between public and private, past and present, production and destruction.

The exhibition is curated by Post Brothers, originally from the USA, based and active in Poland. The participating artists are Hannibal Andersen, Kalle Brolin, Kåre Frang, Sebastian Hedevang & Andreas Rønholt Schmidt, Henriette Heise, Silas Inoue, Hanni Kamaly, Dag Kewenter, Aleksandra Kucharska, Ina Nian, Jessica Olausson, Vibe Overgaard and Matilda Tjäder.

– I am drawn to the Öresund region, often regarded as a gateway to continental Europe, and a place that has been reimagined and reshaped countless times throughout history. The exhibition examines the strengths and weaknesses of the region's social and cultural frameworks, offering an ironic critique of infrastructure and the development narratives within the welfare states, says Post Brothers.

Major societal transformations in focus

What unites the artists is their exploration of how our societal structures impact human labour, human bodies, and our lived experiences. Several of the artists work from a social-historical perspective, investigating various movements and narratives in the region, often against the backdrop of climate change and privatisation. Many of the works are rooted in true stories about the region's transformation and history – stories that the region has embraced, exploited, or rejected.

In 1953, the Scanian industrialist Ruben Rausing made an ambitious proposal: drain the Öresund, thereby bringing Malmö and Copenhagen together and providing new space for development. Rather than viewing Rausing's statement solely as an expression of capitalist logic driven by a desire for growth, the exhibition's curator, Post Brothers, embraces the absurdity of the statement, treating it as an artistic provocation to reconsider ideas about national borders and development.

– Malmö has a strong and vibrant contemporary art scene. Drain the Öresund looks across the strait, exploring the region's origins and direction and the connection between Malmö and Copenhagen, as well as what possibilities can be found in the in-between space of this borderland, says Director of Malmö Konsthall, Mats Stjernstedt.

The exhibition runs from February 8th to May 4th, 2025. As part of the exhibition program, Asta Lynge's and Matilda Tjäder's film The Strait Trilogy (2020–23) will be screened at Panora cinema on March 4th at 6pm. The film will be followed by a conversation between the artists and Post Brothers.

Welcome to the press preview on Thursday, February 6th, at 11am. Malmö Konsthall's Director Mats Stjernstedt and Post Brothers will be present, alongside some of the participating artists. RSVP to johannes.kjellgren@malmo.se by February 3rd.

The exhibition is made possible with support from the Polish Institute and the Danish Arts Foundation.

Press images for the exhibition can be found here