In Dialogue - Care Work

Two experts exchange their views on the central themes of the exhibition Swedish Modernism and connect them to current questions about art, research and society. With Pary El-Qalqili (director and writer) and Karen Michelsen Castañón (art mediator and artist)

Care work has never been shared equally. For Swedish modernist artists, gender roles and the social expectations associated with them were significant. Examining this period enables us to consider various forms of parenthood and the current unequal distribution of unpaid care work. To what extent do the artists’ works reflect structural inequalities, mental burdens, exclusion, and a lack of recognition within the art world?

Pary El-Qalqili is a Berlin-based artist who works across film, performance, and teaching. Her work explores the themes of forced displacement, exile, and structures of violence and resistance. Taking colonial imagery, regimes of looking that categorise people rigidly, and hegemonic politics of representation as her starting points, she examines processes of dehumanisation and erasure. In her filmmaking, she seeks storytelling forms that allow for gaps, ruptures, and disruptions.

Karen Michelsen Castañón (born in Lima, Perú) is a visual artist, filmmaker, and freelance researcher. Her work deals with the way (colonial) stories are told and includes short films, photographs, and textiles. She questions how both hegemonic and invisible stories are restaged in our everyday lives and how this relates to current social events.

We are committed to respectful interaction. Discriminatory behavior has no place at our events.

We are committed to respectful interaction. Discriminatory behavior has no place at our events.