Opening: 25th October from 18:00-22.00, Opening Performance at 20.00 by Rosa Häggbom and musician Valerie Bjelkeborn.

Artist Rosa Häggbom brings together medieval Christianity, Babylonian tales, and Pagan legends to create new, alternative spirits. She resuscitates forgotten parables from history and uses them to create new mythological creatures for contemporary dreams and wishes. In Rosa’s previous work, the traditional Eastern Christian icon is the formal starting point from which she constructs her manifold characters, often exaggerating expressions and playing with dispositions. In this newly commissioned work for Konsthall C, she pushes the form further by presenting new, hybrid creatures in an iconographic style which imposes sacrality and invites devotion. Creatures like a snail-ouroboros and a human-headed octopus with ram horns are superimposed onto jewel-toned textile fabrics that recall stained glass in Gothic cathedrals. The cast of characters is expanded through wooden silhouette sculptures that recall the shadow puppetry of medieval Europe. The result is a theater of myths and legends, where characters come together to conjure, entrance, and bewitch. 

Häggboms artistry is a unique brew of spiritual symbolism, imaginative folklore aesthetics and theatrical figures in abstract dreamscapes. Her work mainly consists of oil paintings, textile crafts, sculpture and performance. 

The opening performance on the 25th of October features an asemic writing session where the artist will publicly engage in an ancient, occult method of communication: one in which the act of writing is pushed beyond its traditional semantic purpose to communicate emotions and expressions that transcend language. Rosa’s asemic writing will be accompanied by an improvised composition featuring musician Valerie Bjelkeborn.  

Rosa Häggbom was born in 1992 and grew up in a suburb north of Stockholm. The starting point of her artistic journey was expressed through acting and theatre improvisation, which eventually developed into an interest in theatre costume design. Later on she studied pattern design and sewing at the School of Fashion and Stage costume in Gothenburg and painting at Gothenburg School of Art. In 2017-2020, Häggbom studied Graphic Design & Illustration at Konstfack, Stockholm. During the next couple of years she participated in four group exhibitions and had five solo exhibitions.