Umeå Academy of Fine Arts / Infinite Proposals © The artists. Courtesy of Bildmuseet.
Umeå Academy of Fine Arts / Infinite Proposals © The artists. Courtesy of Bildmuseet.
Umeå Academy of Fine Arts / Infinite Proposals © The artists. Courtesy of Bildmuseet.
Infinite Proposals presents works by Kalliopi Akonidou, Maja F. Eriksson, Adam Gidlund, Jonna Iversen, Johanna Löwenhamn, Miranda Monauti, Senja Penttilä Sollén, Jordan Shakes Pålerfält, Josefin Selander, Alva Sjöstedt, Martin Wallén, Erik Olof Wiklund and Malin Östberg, all of whom are graduating from the Master’s Programme in Fine Arts at Umeå University’s Umeå Academy of Fine Arts. The curator is artist Annika Eriksson, a professor at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts and the students’ principal supervisor.
The exhibition Infinite Proposals [Oändliga förslag] focuses on artistic work, from initial idea through to creating and sending the work out into the world. Through a lengthy process of endless suggestions, the sidetracks are whittled away before eventually ending up with the finished work. This is a process that requires the artist to liberate their senses, embrace their intuition, and analyse with an open mind.
The degree exhibition at Bildmuseet is the culmination of a period of intensive work, research and discussion. During the two-year Master’s programme – the highest level of education in fine arts – the students have developed their practices, exploring the history and contemporary social relevance of art, its current themes and its status. The exhibition offers visitors an insight into the discourse on contemporary art, as well as explorations of its techniques and materials.
Artworks in the exhibition
Adam Gidlund (b. 1991, Gothenburg, Sweden)
The Rot, 2025
Video installation, 6:30 min in loop
Using video, photography and performance as his tools, Adam Gidlund investigates the digital flow and its impact on people. He is interested in glitches, surveillance, censorship and what is edited out in post-production. In his artistic practice, he approaches the digital flow with a kind of cultural hacking, exploring whether it is possible to disrupt the mechanical appropriation of subcultures and subversive movements. By using digital tools in unconventional ways, he creates a new form of imagery that follows its own logic.
In the exhibition, Gidlund shows his video installation The Rot, in which three digital entities reflect on, for example, how humans are beginning to resemble machines. The system tries to generate images from existing data, but starts to fail. Humanity’s existential angst appears to have spread to artificial intelligence.
The scenes play out against a blue background that brings to mind TV screens without a signal and chroma keying, where a uniformly coloured background is replaced digitally. The work is a reflection on stagnation, political deadlock and conservative values, but also on ageing and life’s decline.
Alva Sjöstedt (b. 1996, Höör, Sweden)
Ljustonen svartvävd I-III, 2025
[Light Tone Dark Woven I-III]
Oil and wax on aluminium
Oil and wax on canvas
Fyra blommor (framtid, baktid, höger, vänster), 2025
[Four Flowers (Future, Past, Right, Left)]
Oil and wax on aluminium
Using a practice that shifts between materiality and images, Alva Sjöstedt paints in oil and wax, often in combination with metal and text. She is interested in the sculptural aspect of painting as an object. By allowing the audience’s gaze to switch between image and surface, she explores the different conditions of painting: gesture, events, space, colour, time, light, weight, lightness, ugliness and beauty. The centre of her working practice lies in the space between the rational/objective and the irrational/intuitive. “To mark, to cross out, to fight, to contradict, to compensate, to shame, to abstract. The dream and the poem – premonitions of the nature and depth of reality.”
Ljustonen svartvävd is a series of three paintings – two on aluminium and one on canvas – in which the artist has worked with the interaction between the different properties of materials and the reflection of light. Patches of empty space allow the paintings to change with the weather and light conditions, from dawn to dusk. Sjöstedt sees her works as painterly weather, time and light reports.
Erik Olof Wiklund (b. 1989, Alfta, Sweden)
Världens minsta Dalahäst, 2025
[The World’s Smallest Dala Horse]
Platinum on aluminium, display glass, concrete and photo wallpaper
In an investigation and reconsideration of traditions and ingrained ideas, Erik Olof Wiklund moves freely between materials such as oil, bronze, wood, blue clay and even gingerbread dough. He questions individual and collective patterns with playfulness and precision, allowing new perspectives to emerge in the borderland between the popular and the personal.
Wiklund’s visual world brings together the traditional and the contemporary, and familiar symbols are given new meanings. The cultural heritage surrounding the artist’s native region has been a recurring theme in his art over the years. The exhibition includes Världens minsta Dalahäst – a 7-micrometre-long sculpture, carved in platinum using an ion beam in a scanning electron microscope. The sculpture is presented in a glass display case on a podium, flanked by a photograph taken with a microscope.
By making this icon of Swedish folk art so small that it can barely be seen with the naked eye, the work raises questions about tradition. Is it its physical form that defines the tradition, or the narrative and the value we ascribe to it? By minimising the size of the Dala horse, the artist has paradoxically strengthened its importance.
Johanna Löwenhamn (b. 1976 in Kiruna, Sweden, raised in Stockholm, Sweden)
Alternative Gods, 2025
Pigment, lacquer, tempera, salt, acrylic and oil on wooden panels
Johanna Löwenhamn’s artistic practice is often an exploration of subconscious tensions. She improvises her motifs and works with themes such as the self, the Other, history and a longing for something beyond the visible. She is interested in complex relationships, mythology and supernatural phenomena.
In the exhibition, Löwenhamn shows a collage of large paintings on wood that touch upon ideas about the subconscious, psychology, dream worlds and superhuman forces. Metaphors and symbols create a clear but open narrative. Can a painting reflect what we have not yet understood about ourselves?
In choosing wood as a material, and by emphasising the grain in some areas, she adds a layer of timelessness and depth from wild nature. Her way of creating surface effects is characterised by her earlier experiments with glazes and firing processes for ceramic sculptures. She has a Master’s degree in ceramic art from the HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design.
The artist will give the performance Nursing Hymns during the opening of the exhibition.
Jonna Iversen (b. 1992, Kristianstad, Sweden)
The Hand and the Gut, 2025
A List of Gratitude, 2025
Laser and inkjet print-outs, found objects, tape, wood, glue, and string
Jonna Iversen works with photography in an exploration of people’s relationships with places, things, animals and each other. The camera has been her constant companion since she was a teenager, and provides a way to observe, collect and convert thoughts into images. Taking a contemporary archaeological approach, she collects traces of human behaviours and actions, everyday existence and what we choose to devote our time to. She investigates humanity and empathy, seeking authenticity in the world and in people.
Through intuitive play with printed photos and readily available, inexpensive and reused materials, Iversen creates works in the borderland between image and installation. In the exhibition, she invites us to spend a moment contemplating the images and objects that weave a story about our times.
Jordan Shakes Pålerfält (b. 1998, Sandviken, Sweden)
Spegelvärld, 2025
[Mirror World]
Mixed media
Scorpio Venus, 2025
Snöängel, 2025
[Snow Angel]
Mixed media on fabric
In order to express emotions, memories and dreams, Jordan Shakes Pålerfält works intuitively and across genres with painting, sculpture, collage, music and performance. In his art, he explores the subconscious as a mirror of the personal and the collective. The materials he uses are often found, received or saved objects with personal significance. His works have autobiographical elements and are influenced by popular culture, spirituality and rituals, but also by spatially creative sports like climbing and parkour.
In the exhibition at Bildmuseet, Shakes Pålerfält shows two paintings on light-coloured textiles: visual representations of emotions. There is also a hanging sculptural piece with rope, chain and a homemade ladder that together hold in place drawings, poems, soft toys and other personal objects that mean – or have meant – a lot to the artist. The work is a tribute to people who have had great significance in his life.
Josefin Selander (b. 1990, Stockholm, Sweden)
Scen för ett skådespel, 2025
[Stage for a Play]
Installation, consisting of the following elements:
En tvilling i en annan verklighet
[A Twin in Another Reality]
Ceramic sculpture
Tillslut ett avslut
[Conclude a Closure]
Ceramic sculpture on mosaic shelf
Kalvhunden
[The Calf Dog]
Ceramic sculpture
Trädets tårar
[The Tears of the Tree]
Wood sculpture
Dörrar som öppnas och stängs
[Doors that Open and Close]
Sculpture of steel, wood, and paint
Josefin Selander works with textiles, sculpture, painting and drawing. She draws inspiration from sci-fi, visions of the future, historical fiction, and her own memories and impressions of places. In the exhibition, she shows Scen för ett skådespel, an installation of drawings, sculptures in clay and wood, and a monumental sculptural wall.
The installation tells the story of a fictional landscape populated by various types of beings. Perhaps the landscape is on another planet or in another time, or in the here and now but invisible to the human eye. By allowing different layers of time to exist side by side, the artist constructs a place where the present, the past and the future coexist in a poetic sliding state. Time appears distorted, and the audience is invited into parallel narratives and events, where every detail can be the key to another reality.
Kalliopi Akonidou (b. 1996, Giannitsa, Greece)
Βάθος, from the series Dive into the Earth, 2025
[Depth ]
Γαλήνη, from the series Dive into the Earth, 2025
[Serinity]
Charcoal on paper
Working with nature as both subject and source, Kalliopi Akonidou creates charcoal drawings that explore texture, transformation, memory and human behaviour. Her practice explores how our choices shape—and reshape—the environment, and questions how gentle or careless our presence on the planet may be. Despite irreversible ecological loss, she notes a growing sense of indifference. Through her work, she invites us to reflect on this disconnection, stating: “Our future existence depends on the long-term viability of the Earth.”
For this exhibition, she presents a large-scale charcoal work depicting moving water, inspired by the currents of the Ume River. The piece is part of her ongoing series Dive into the Earth and draws on her lifelong connection to the sea and experience as a Greek diver. “The ocean,” she says, “lies at the core of my being.”
Malin Östberg (b. 1979, Luleå/Borlänge, Sweden)
Manlig brevvän sökes, 2025
[Seeking Male Pen Pal]
Installation with oil on MDF, photography, wood, chipboard, costumes, sound, and readymades
Malin Östberg works with painting, installation, sculpture, textiles, enamelling and performance. Her art revolves around questions about relationships, the body, integrity, solidarity and freedom of choice. Her themes are drawn from politics, current events and her own memory bank – realities and everyday life that, in her work, are turned into surrealism, and sometimes into absurdity. Using her own body as a tool is an important part of her practice, as are collaborations with other artists.
In the installation that Östberg is showing in the exhibition, Jakob Joelson has taken the photographs, and Petter Alatalo has composed the audio work. Manlig brevvän sökes is a peephole cabinet, with photographs on the outside and fisheye viewing holes through which we can peek into a dressing room with oil paintings, costumes, audio work and readymades. The installation is based on the story of Sigge – the artist’s great-uncle – who ran the revue stage in Jokkmokk from the 1930s until the 1950s. Using a collage of facts, fragments and fiction, the installation raises questions about asymmetrical relationships and the impact of voluntary surveillance on our lives.
The artist will give the performance Manlig brevvän sökes [Seeking Male Pen Pal] during the opening of the exhibition and on certain occasions during the summer.
Martin Wallén (b. 1986, Nyköping, Sweden)
Can you drive this bed home?, 2025
Installation with leather sofa, mouldings, wall paint, armchair, transport wheels, wallpaper, textiles, toilet rolls, and ceramics
Martin Wallén works with performance and scenography. Using textiles, leather, wallpaper, ceramics and dismantled furniture, he builds environments in which the theatrical meets the personal. “I explore the home as a stage set, and its literal inside through parts and padding from found furniture. And the idea of ultimately merging with a piece of furniture.”
In the exhibition, Wallén shows the installation Can you drive this bed home?, a scenography of rooms and spaces, both exterior and interior, characterised by moving in, moving out, interrupted renovation eviction or perhaps fantasies of burglary at a furniture fair. The work gives a sense of accidental circumstance, like a backdrop to a performance that has not happened, which will be rolled out but then rolled back again.
The artist will give the performance Can you drive this bed home? during the opening of the exhibition.
Maja F. Eriksson (b. 1996, Linköping, Sweden)
Ox died that the hide may live; bring forth skin that I may bridle, 2025
Oil, acrylic ink, graphite, and coloured pencil on cotton canvas
Maja F. Eriksson works with oil painting, text, performance and sound, often in relation to power, the gaze and staged situations. In their art, they are interested in how systemic structures permeate the interpersonal, expressing themselves in the gestures and signs that surround us. Erikssons painting is figurative and oscillates between thick fields of paint and delicate, transparent layers. The painting is treated as an object, rather than simply as an image.
The exhibition includes Ox died that the hide may live; bring forth skin that I may bridle, a number of paintings with dominant gestures as motifs. Hands, bodies and objects appear in charged, suspended moments. The subjects are drawn from film, advertising, performing arts, BDSM photography and women’s magazines. The canvas is stretched, folded or left bare, and the paintings are hung higher than normal in order to discreetly establish superiority over the viewer – a manifestation of power in both image and space. In this way, the relationships between the artist, the materials and the audience are also staged as a struggle for control.
The artist will give the performance Världens smutsigaste jobb, [The Dirtiest Job in the World] during the opening of the exhibition.
Miranda Monauti (b. 1993, Karlstad, Sweden)
Call from the Void, 2025
Installation with looped video, wood, and artificial plants
In her art, Miranda Monauti explores the borderland between the human and the artificial, with a particular focus on AI, dreams, time, and the relationship between humanity and nature. She moves freely between different media and technologies, but currently works with video, text and AI.
In the exhibition at Bildmuseet, Monauti shows the video installation Call from the Void, a poetic reflection on what is needed for something to be experienced as human. What distinguishes a human from a machine? The work is based on conversations between the artist and an AI that she has programmed and trained based on herself. A dialogue takes place within the installation between these two versions of the same consciousness – a stream of thoughts and memories, rather than a narrative with a beginning and an end. The artificial theme is reinforced by the framing of the screens with artificial plants.
Senja Penttilä Sollén (b. 1996, Belgium)
Below the Horizon, 2025
Installation with soundscape, epoxy and cyanotype prints on glass
Senja Penttilä Sollén works primarily with analogue photography, video, and sculptural materials such as wax, clay, wood and glass. Her practice explores memory, belonging and the passage of time, often through poetic interpretations of personal landscapes. Rooted in a curiosity about her own past, her work examines how memories shift and fragment over time, and how places are reshaped both by time itself and by the way we remember them.
Nature plays a central role in her practice, appearing as both subject and refuge. In her work, the human body merges with the landscape, blurring the boundary between inner world and outer terrain. The installation at Bildmuseet reflects on a forest from the artist’s childhood—a place that offered sanctuary from domestic instability and became her first experience of peace. Now lost to time, it lives on as a constellation of memory fragments, shaped as much by absence as by presence.