Opening and performance: Dreams and Visions by the Sea

A warm welcome to the opening and performance with Ingela Ihrman and Muhammad Ali at Mjellby Art Museum!

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the first surrealist manifesto, Art Inside Out visits Mjellby Art Museum with the exhibition Dreams and Visions by the Sea. In an exploration of the imprint of surrealism in contemporary times, the artists Ingela Ihrman and Muhammad Ali have been invited to create new works during an artistic residency in and around Halmstad. 

What new realities arise today in the desire to challenge and transform society, conventions, and the limitations of the self? Surrealism calls for new languages, artistic hybrids, critical creativity, and demands that we identify and challenge the boundaries that claim our reality, but the political and aesthetic conventions that surrealism wants to shed and transgress are different now than they were a hundred years ago. The desire to move beyond the limitations of reality, to allow it to explode and expand, is motivated by other forces. In the gaps that arise between artificial intelligence and human bodies. In a transformed view of our role in ecological systems where we are no longer the sole conquerors but are tightly interconnected with other species and organisms. In queer, postcolonial, and anti-racist resistance movements. To name only a few. The development of society has blazed a trail for new forms, methods, and creative spaces where surrealism’s quest through the labyrinths of the subconscious, the crossing of boundaries, and what lies beyond reality is actualized. The exhibition, together with a rich performance program and the publication AIO Journal, follows some of these threads and examine the influence surrealism has on our contemporary moment. 

Ingela Ihrman’s work consists of a four-meter-long costume/sculpture of a two-row corn ax that she used earlier this summer to record a video work at selected locations in and around Halmstad. Inspired by a Papphammarscen, she has painstakingly carried around the ear of corn, over cornfields, on a beach in Laholmsbukten and by Steninge church. During the summer, the ear has also changed from being green to being golden yellow. The sculpture and the video work are displayed in the library at Mjellby, and the video work will also be available to view in selected locations around Halmstad.

At 13.30, in connection with the opening, Ingela Ihrman will make performance outside the museum.

Muhammad Ali’s mural Under the Stone can be found in the museum’s courtyard. A captivating mural that exposes the hidden mechanisms of reality. Inspired by walks in Grötvik’s quarries and by Surrealism’s playful play between fantasy and reality, the painting invites us to explore the mysteries that lie beyond what we know and see around us. Where nothing is what it seems

During the opening, you can listen to an artist talk with Muhammad Ali (in English). At 12:00 in connection with the mural.

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Later this autumn you can also take part in new performance works by the artists Linnea Hansander (21/9), Ylva Snöfrid (28/9), a deep dive into Afro-surrealism produced by curator Tawanda Appiah (19/10), Alexander Wireen (2 /11) and Klara Andersson/Fågelle (16/11).