Mandana Moghaddam / Woman Life Freedom

The autumn's first opening at Bildmuseet features a solo exhibition by the Swedish-Iranian artist Mandana Moghaddam. The exhibition showcases mirror mosaic, sculpture, and installation, and will be inaugurated with an artist talk on Saturday, 16th September, the anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini's death in Tehran.

Welcome to the press preview on Wednesday, 13th September, at 10:00 (RSVP). The artist will introduce the exhibition in conversation with museum curator Brita Täljedal

Art’s ability to bridge cultural boundaries is a central theme in Mandana Moghaddam’s work. Encompassing human communication, migration, and feminism, her art draws inspiration from Iranian cultural history and pressing topical events. Her primary media are video, sculpture, and installation with hair, mirror mosaic, and concrete as recurring materials.

The exhibition shows mirror mosaic works from the series Underlandet [The Wonderland] and Chelgis I, a human-scale sculpture covered in hair and enclosed in a glass case. The title refers to a girl in a Persian tale whose name means ‘forty braids’. Moghaddam has created the new sculpture What they gonna do with the inevitable growth of sprouts? Chelgis VI, as well as a new work in the Underlandet series, especially for Bildmuseet. The exhibition title reminds us of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student Mahsa Jina Amini, who passed away on the 16th of September 2022, shortly after being arrested by the morality police in Iran, accused of not wearing her headscarf correctly. Her death marked the beginning of nationwide demonstrations for human rights under the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom."

Mandana Moghaddam (b. 1962, Tehran) grew up and studied in Tehran. In the years 1978–79, while still a teenager, the revolution that transformed Iran into an Islamic republic occurred, later leading to the execution of her father. Moghaddam was expelled from her education and had to flee. After spending three years as an asylum seeker in Turkey, she arrived in Sweden. Initially, she resided in Kristineberg in Västerbotten and subsequently lived in Gothenburg for an extended period. She now resides and works in Stockholm and was active as an artist in both Sweden and Iran until 2022.

Moghaddam has participated in the Venice Biennale, Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in South Korea, the Prague Biennale, and Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, exhibiting in several countries, including Iran, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, and Sweden. She has created works for schools, hospitals, and other public spaces. On the commission of the Swedish Public Art Agency, she created the outdoor work Vinden för oss med sig[The Wind Carries Us Along] in 2015, an open room in moulded concrete for Vindarnas torg at Umeå University's main campus, no more than two kilometres from Bildmuseet at the Arts Campus.

PRESS PREVIEW WED 13/9 10:00
Representatives of the media are warmly welcome to a preview of the exhibition on Wednesday, 13th September, at 10:00 (RSVP). Mandana Moghaddam will present her exhibition in conversation with Brita Täljedal, curator.
PRESS IMAGES: https://www.bildmuseet.umu.se/press-images

OPENING SAT 16/9 14:00
Mandana Moghaddam / Woman Life Freedom will be inaugurated on Saturday, 16^th September at 14:00 through a conversation between Mandana Moghaddam and Brita Täljedal in the exhibition.

For further information

Brita Täljedal, museum curator Bildmuseet
brita.taljedal@bildmuseet.umu.se, +46 90 7867714

Helena Vejbrink, press contact Bildmuseet
helena.vejbrink@bildmuseet.umu.se, +46 90 7869073