The film Facing – A Usual Story from an Unknown Country (2008) is a collaborative project between Danish artist Pia Rönicke and Kurdish writer Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak. While they met in LA in 2006, some time later Rönicke proposed making a film adaptation of Kızılyaprak’s short story Knock… knock… knock, where he narrates his experience in the cell of a Turkish torture center. Since 1980, the regime in Turkey has actively sought to erase the Kurdish language, sense of belonging, right to a homeland, place in history and ability to speak. The film revolves around the meeting between Kadir, a young revolutionary locked in one cell, and an old religious man in the neighboring cell. They get in contact with each other through a little pipe hole, through which they try to have small conversations and to help each other. The story is told from the perspective of its writer from a present day position, depicting a meeting between the storyteller and a character in the story.

Facing – A Usual Story from an Unknown Country is presented in conjunction with the exhibition The Drifters’ Archive by Pia Rönicke, an exhibition in two parts presented at Fuxia 2 until 9 April (Norra Grängesbergsgatan 19, Malmö) and SIGNAL until 14 June.

Location: Hypnos Theatre, Norra Grängesbergsgatan 15, Malmö

We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher (2025), 65min

The film is a 65-minute cinematic experiment exploring the continuing relevance of the late theorist Mark Fisher’s (1968–2017) ideas on capitalism, culture, and the future. A compelling critic of capitalist realism, he asked urgent questions about agency, collective action, and how popular culture can keep alive visions of different futures.

Blending documentary, performance, and hauntological fiction, the film moves through ghostly landscapes and digital spaces, tracing Fisher’s thought from the 1990s to our algorithmic present. It explores solidarity, shared labour and digital connectivity and enacts what Fisher insisted was still possible – decapitalised cultural production, collective agency among the ruins of neoliberal atomisation. Created collaboratively by over 70 artists through Instagram (@markfisherfilm), the film embodies Fisher’s call for collective imagination beyond capitalist realism. A reminder that DIY doesn’t mean private – it means working together.

27 March–14 June 2026
Opening Friday 27 March 7-9pm

Closed for Easter 3–5 April & 1 May

Dear E

They keep telling us that the past has passed and that we have little to do with what is yet to come.
How to deal with such violence?

And here we are, once again, despite the fences and the extraction. Despite this rhythm imposed with statistical cruelty. Here we are, believing in images and words, shapes and sounds, despite it all. Once again, knowing that it’s never the same again.

But let’s rehearse a possible beginning. Perhaps 2006: you and Pia working together on her exhibition at L k. It’s not difficult to imagine you two, gathered around Pia’s practice. One can almost feel the sense of urgency of those conversations. A plot, a search for cracks along the walls that now, twenty years later, resonates like a murmur, or a prophecy.

Pia’s is the kind of work that impels us to write letters to those we care about. Letters written in a nomadic language, addressed to our loved ones, and to the ones we’ve learnt to love across history (through photographs, pages, traces). Pia’s work is a gathering (of stories, between beings), and so we gather in this archive, that sounds like the water dripping on a tree fern, while the coxolitli sings. A drifting archive, that collects the echoes of revolutionary dreams. Of Rosa, of Walter, of Ursula. Here we are, in motion, walking in the cloud forest, meandering through an unknown city. Once again, retelling stories about the dignity of the dispossessed. About a girl who followed the rhythm of the woods, and escaped society. About a seed that travelled back home, crossing the ocean. Life: that which remains unruly, despite it all.

How to deal with such hope?

Dear F

Your letter is of the rare kind I wish to receive, a shared sensibility that resonates perfectly with my mood. I’ve been spending the summer reading Sara Ahmed. Annoyed by the state of things in the world and thrown between a dispirited sadness and the empowerment of the NO (more), I tended to my balcony plants for some momentary solace.

Reading your beautiful notes on Pia’s work, I couldn’t help to think of Rosa Luxemburg and her incessant, fierce critique of war mongering. Imprisoned and under surveillance, she formulates a brutal dissection of capitalism, exposes the disease of imperialism and argues against the conventional, wooden language of her peers while seeking words that go from the writer’s heart to the reader’s heart. Even from within her enclosed prison cell she notices the early signs of the ecological collapse we suffer today.

Her battle feels so timely, and yet so overwhelmingly unreachable. Will we ever succeed in breaking this vicious circle?

In a way, Pia humbly picks up this thread between Rosa’s revolutionary stance, one imbued with so much love expressed and shared in her letter writing, and Hannah Arendt’s storytelling as a way to borne all sorrows. Such a stark contrast to certain institutions who celebrate Arendt while continuing their abuse of power.

Things run in circles, yes, but circles do break eventually.
Is this perhaps the sort of hope you’re asking for?
I believe it can be.

Pia Rönicke is a visual artist living in Copenhagen. For over two decades, she has collected narratives that contest the colonial and capitalist attempts to enclose life. Rönicke’s projects imbricate diverse media and expand across timelines, honoring the inexhaustible force of feminist and communal resistance. The Drifters’ Archive is an exhibition in two parts presented at Fuxia 2 (Norra Grängesbergsgatan 19, Malmö) and SIGNAL.

Pia Rönicke, The Drifters' Archive. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Detalj/detail. Foto/Photo: OMN

Pia Rönicke, Rosa's Letters, 2006. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Resource exploitation in Sápmi has a long history. Since the 17th century, industrialists and investors have turned to the north to cope with various crises. In early modern times, it was a matter of obtaining capital for the consumption of the new global commodities of the time. Today, it is a matter of what is commonly referred to as green transition.

The discovery of silver at Násavarri/Nasafjäll and copper at Svappavaara/Svahpavarri in the early 17th century opened up northern Sápmi to mining, the establishment of mills and marketplaces, but also to the first wave of tourism and cultural exploitation of the area. The economic boom of the 17th century was followed by a recession in the industrialisation of northern Sweden, but it served as a clear foundation for the exploitation that gained momentum in the 19th century and is therefore significant for our society today.

Jonas Monié Nordin is a professor of historical archaeology at Lund University and conducts research on resource colonisation in Sápmi during the early modern period. In 2020, he published the award-winning book The Scandinavian Early Modern World, which places Scandinavian colonialism in a broader global context. Jonas is also a member of the Truth Commission for the Sámi People.

The talk will be held in Swedish.

The Song of Stone (1963), 25min

The Song of Stone (Ishi no Uta) is an experimental documentary film by avant-garde film director Toshio Matsumoto (1932–2017) with a soundtrack by Kuniharu Akiyama. The film follows the lives of stonemasons in the village of Aji on Shikoku in Japan and their intimate but tough relationship with the material they work with – a material that follows them from the cradle to the grave. Using almost exclusively still images, Kuniharu Akiyama’s soundscape and Toshio Matsumoto’s voice-over convey a quiet and highly poetic portrait of a granite quarry and the labour involved, but also the stonemasons’ spiritual and caring relationship with the living material that is stone.

The Song of Stone is screened in conjunction to our current exhibition niilas helander: If I am the lake you take your face from.

Máhccan – Homecoming (2023), 1h 16min

The film is set in the museum world in a turning point, where the national museums have to deal with their colonial history. The National Museum of Finland returned thousands of everyday objects taken from the indigenous Sámi people back to them. Filmmaker Suvi West takes the audience behind the scenes revealing a visual, philosophical, and spiritual realm. She seeks a connection with ancestors through old museum objects, eventually arriving at the collective pain points of the Sámi people. West asks whether the returning objects can help a fractured nation cope with past sorrows.

How can one hear the voice of ancestors, who traditionally have aided the Sámi people in navigating life? And how can one confront a sacred drum that has been violently taken, traditionally considered inappropriate to photograph or touch, as it belongs only to its owner?

As the dream-like journey progresses, she delves deeper into the bloody past of the Sámi people and the realm of unresolved sorrows. The effects of historical events are felt and become visible in the present moment. Simultaneously, West asks how forgiveness can be given? How can the damage caused by outsiders be repaired so that collective pains can finally be left behind?

Máhccan – Homecoming is screened in conjunction to our current exhibition niilas helander: If I am the lake you take your face from.

In this Metod talk, Nathalie Koger will introduce The Golden Pixel Cooperative, an association founded in 2013 in Vienna in response to the need for collective action by artists and art workers within a predominantly individualistic cultural landscape. Over the years, the cooperative has developed a range of structures and frameworks that constitute its infrastructure, fostering bottom-up curation and engagement by the members through screenings, workshops, exhibitions, symposia, and publications.

In her talk, Nathalie will present the collective film Half of the Sky (2020) — an homage to the often under appreciated female Bauhaus artists, and a tribute to further queer-feminist role models and emancipatory practices. Building on this, she will also outline the cooperative’s organisational structure and highlight some of its discursive formats.

Nathalie Koger is an artist and film maker from the Black Forest, now living in Vienna and one of the founding members of GPC in 2013.
GPC (The Golden Pixel Cooperative) is an association for moving images, arts and media, active within both exhibition and cinema contexts.

The talk will be held in English.

Metod is an ongoing series of talks about working methods within the field of contemporary art and culture.

The Miners Strike of 1984-85 was a fundamental turning point in the relationship between the State and the working populace and marked a change in the social and political landscape of the United Kingdom. The neoliberal experiment that started in the Americas in the 1970s and expanded with the election victories of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was now to be implemented across the Atlantic Ocean with devastating results that are still being felt today.

In this talk, Värmland-based sound artist, cultural archivist and former Trades Union activist Dave Procter discusses the events that led to the start of the Miners Strike, the major events that took place during the year long dispute, the aftermath of the strike and the lessons we have learnt and need to (re)learn with the rise of far right political parties across the EU and the world.

Dave Procter is a sound artist based on Hammarö in Värmland, where he also works for ABF as an English teacher and as an academic proof reader at Karlstad University. He grew up in a mining community as a member of a mining family and this informed his social and political thinking as a teenager watching his community change as the 1980s progressed. As a university lecturer in Leeds, he became involved in Trades Union activism and this in turn fed into some of the more sociological courses he taught on in the Music Department.

The talk will be held in English.

In this Metod talk, niilas helander will discuss his art practice and activism through the lens of Marxism and racialised capitalism (also known as black Marxism) as a starting point, or possibly a method. Two separate engagements, but with a common thread running through both.

niilas helander is an artist and poet from Álletnjárga in Sápmi, now living in Athens. He has a BA from the School of Photography in Gothenburg and a Master of Fine Arts from the Malmö Art Academy (2015).

The talk will be held in English.

Metod is an ongoing series of talks about working methods within the field of contemporary art and culture.

26 September–7 December 2025
Opening Friday 26 September 6-11pm

my pronouns are fox, wolf, and goshawk
a river running through me, who are you

niilas helander is an artist and poet from Álletnjárga in Sápmi, now living in Athens, whose work is infused by Sámi epistemology in relation to the constraints imposed by Western law. Issues relating to land ownership and exploitation are specifically addressed as a kind of ecological contract. If Sámi law is a law of nature, a spiritual law, how can we then live within it? The river says, I am the law, and overflows every spring.

We hollow the mountains, we cut down the forests, we prevent the free movement of reindeer, we destroy rivers and lakes, we poison the air, we set up borders—racism just makes the Sámi law impossible.

Through found footage, text, drawing and sculpture an intricate proof of state policy and oppression is brought forward alongside testimonies of the continuous destruction of sacred and spiritual landmarks. For the exhibition at SIGNAL works by fellow artists are invited to dialogue with helander’s own work, including Iver Jåks and Hamlet Hovsepian.

niilas helander, If I am the lake you take your face from. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, If I am the lake you take your face from. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, An Ecological Contract, 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, An Ecological Contract, 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Land Doesn’t Acknowledge You, 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Land Doesn’t Acknowledge You, 2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Geography of Hate, 2021/2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Geography of Hate, 2021/2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Geography of Hate, 2021/2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Geography of Hate, 2021/2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, The Geography of Hate, 2021/2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, An Ecological Contract, 2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, An Ecological Contract, 2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, An Ecological Contract, 2025 (detalj/detail). Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, Breach of Contract, 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, If I am the lake you take your face from. Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, Untitled (goavddis), 2025 Foto/Photo: OMN

Installationsvy/installation view. Foto/Photo: OMN

Hamlet Hovsepian, Untitled, 1976. Foto/Photo: OMN

Iver Jåks, Liten Háldi, 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander, Untitled (crows), 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN

niilas helander,, Untitled (crows), 2025. Foto/Photo: OMN