STOCKHOLM COSMOLOHIES

220pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Liljevalchs, Stockholm, 2025

ISBN: 9789186011758

This publication is based on the exhibition held at Liljevalchs, Stockholm, November 2025 - January 2026.

Stockholm Cosmologies explores the concept of cosmology as a poetic and political model for how artists relate to the world, time, place, material, and to one another. It brings together fifteen fine artists working across media and active in multiple geographies, spanning Scandinavia, Africa, and its diaspora, including Lefifi Tladi, Igshaan Adams, Garth Erasmus, Bronwyn Katz and Inga Somdyala. The book also brings art into discussion with the work of various writers, including South African poets Maneo Mohale, Mantiphe Moila, Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal, Nick Mulgrew, Sihle Ntuli and Lindiwe Mabuza.

In Stockholm Cosmologies, the second iteration of the curatorial project that began with Stockholm Cosmology (2024), Liljevalchs continues its survey of the Swedish art scene by considering various contact zones. One such contact zone stems from the diplomatic relations between Sweden and the South African government-in-exile between the 1960s and mid-1990s. 

Contributors include Alexandra Dodd, Jason Jabobs, Storm Janse van Renburg, Aryan Kaganof, Thabang Monoa, Nick Mulgrew, Pieter Madibuseng Odendaal, Naadira Patel, Pravasan Pillay and Sihle Sogaula.

Text in both English and Swedish.

Joanna Sandell Wright is Director of Liljevalchs in Stockholm. During 1994, she covered the first free elections in South Africa as a journalist reporting for Swedish Radio.

Storm Janse van Rensburg is currently Interim Curatorial Director at the University of Pretoria, and was previously Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs at Zeitz MOCCA in Cape Town.