Otobong Nkanga – First Major Exhibition in Sweden

This autumn’s exhibition at Malmö Konsthall is devoted to the multidisciplinary practice of Otobong Nkanga. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, “I dreamt of you in colours” is the first large-scale presentation of her work in Sweden. It opens on Friday 9 October at 7 p.m, with a press preview on Thursday 8 October at 10 a.m.

Body, Land and the Earth’s Resources
Otobong Nkanga was born in Kano, Nigeria, in 1974, and is based in Antwerp, Belgium. Since the late 1990s, she has tackled themes of ecology and the relationship between the body and the land, creating powerful works of great visual presence. Following her studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris, and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Nkanga explored issues relating to mining and the use of the earth’s resources, as well as the body in its relationship to space and the earth. She examines their complex social, political and material interconnections in a practice that runs through multiple mediums and forms of expression.

– In a time when ecological, social and political upheavals keep transforming the ways in which we relate to the world, there are many reasons to present Otobong Nkanga’s artistic practice. Her works reveal new connections and raise questions about how we are connected to the earth, raw materials and collective memory. In this way, we are invited to reflect on our own responsibilities, says Mats Stjernstedt, Director of Malmö Konsthall.

Strata, Connections and Transformation
Drawing both on her personal history and her own research, which reflects transhistorical and multicultural influences, Nkanga creates networks and constellations between humans and landscapes while also looking at natural and relational systems’ restorative capacity. The idea of strata is central to the artist’s work – both in the materiality of her sculptures, interventions, performances and tapestries, and in her way of thinking about the connections between bodies and lands, connections that involve mutual exchange and transformation. Nkanga explores not only the concept of the circulation of materials and goods, people and their entangled stories and histories, but also the idea of their exploitation, stamped by the remnants of violent colonial histories. Questioning memory, she offers the vision of a possible future.

A Cross-Section of Nkanga’s Artistic Practice
I dreamt of you in colours offers a cross-section of Nkanga’s protean body of work, from the start of her career right up to the present, tracing the genealogy of recurring subjects whose visual expression is constantly evolving. For her show, the artist reactivates certain works by introducing new elements added on site in a poetics of entanglement, creating connections between forms, materials and ideas.

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (MAM), Paris Musées and the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (MCBA). Curators in Paris and Lausanne: Odile Burluraux (MAM) and Nicole Schweizer (MCBA). Curator in Malmö: Mats Stjernstedt (Malmö Konsthall).

Welcome to join us for the press preview on Thursday, 8 October, at 10 a.m.
The artist Otobong Nkanga and Mats Stjernstedt, director of Malmö Konsthall, will be present.

Please RSVP to johannes.kjellgren@malmo.se by 6 October.
Click here for press images
Password: press2026

Opening Event of the exhibition to the public is on Friday, 9 October, at 7 p.m.