Welcome to Radical love: care as resistance - a series of events that explore practices of care in queer and BIPOC artistic and activist communities, curated by Sam Hultin and Samuel Girma. In English.

This evening takes place at Bonniers konsthall where Conny Karlsson Lundgren’s solo show I Kiss Your Eyes runs from February 14 to April 7. The exhibition is the first large solo exhibition by the artist and presents work from over 20 years. Desire, lust, intimacy and resistance are themes that reoccur in his artistic practice. Often starting from hidden micro histories in archives Conny carefully brings out perspectives on queer experiences and Swedish gay histories. Temporary spaces such as the park, the night club, the summer camp or the bedroom often constitutes the site of his explorations.

During the evening artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian will make a performance in the exhibition space. Afrang (IR/SWE b. 1995.) is an artist with a master’s degree in Fine Arts from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem (2022). He works with history’s unnoticed creators and puts history into use as a form of documentation and aspiration that calls for improbable and impossible futurities. His work examines how narratives and hierarchies disappear, return, and transform in the most unexpected ways.

The evening will also involve a participatory reading of letters to the editor to the 1960’s porn magazines Piff and Raff – two of a few relatively safe spaces for trans people to connect before any known trans organizations existed. The material comes from Sam Hultin’s ongoing work Eva-Lisa’s monument.

The evening will end with a conversation between Conny Karlsson Lundgren, Afrang Nordlöf Malekian, Samuel Girma and Sam Hultin.

As usual there will be soup (this time it’s free!)

Welcome!
Sam and Samuel

Radical love: care as resistance

In the series Radical love: care as resistance, Samuel Girma and Sam Hultin explore practices of care in queer and BIPOC communities as a resistance to the growing neo-fascism, islamophobia, racism and transphobia. Since the start in 2022 at IASPIS/The Swedish Arts Grants Committee in Stockholm they have arranged a number of events with themes such as self-organized care within trans communities, bell hooks, grief, poetry, history writing and Black queer music. Invited speakers and performers includes (among others) Hil Malatino, Judith Kiros, Valerie Kyeyune Backström, Zafira Vrba Woodski, Jonelle Twum, Levi Appelton, Asynja Grey and Lynnee Denise.

Sam Hultin is an artist based in Stockholm. Their work is rooted in their interest in queer histories, identity and community and explores connections between personal experiences and political and social structures. Through city walks, sing-alongs and anniversaries Sam often invite queer communities to activate queer histories together with them.

Samuel Girma is a Stockholm based film and art curator, as well as an activist and co-founder of the anti-racist, intersectional and feminist platform Black Queers Sweden. He is born and raised in Ethiopia and moved to Sweden as a 13 year old which has informed his perspective on Blackness and migration. A lot of Samuel’s work, art and writing departs from and centers the experiences of Black bodies.

Image: Hanna Böhm