Exhibition: TENTACULAR THINKING by Susanne Fagerlund

In TENTACULAR THINKING, Susanne Fagerlund explores animals, plants, and digital hybrid species. The exhibition draws inspiration from nature’s resilience and ability to form networks to collaborate and share resources, and consists of works from two series by the artist, THE DOPPELGÄNGER SERIES and THE MAD GARDENER.

The exhibition will open on Friday 2 May 2025 at 4-6 pm.

In TENTACULAR THINKING, Susanne Fagerlund explores animals, plants, and digital hybrid species. The exhibition draws inspiration from nature's ability to resist, adapt, transform, and form networks to share resources. Fagerlund works in the intersections of art, science, and technology using glitching photography as a method of exploration. The works exhibited at Galleri Image consist of two projects: THE MAD GARDENER and THE DOPPELGÄNGER SERIES.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Donna Haraway's theories about tentacular thinking and how all living things are interconnected in an ecosystem. Haraway describes our existence as deeply intertwined with other species. 

During the spring of 2023, Fagerlund collaborated with the Hasselblad Foundation and Gothenburg's Natural History Museum on a project that included inventorying their image archive of living, endangered and extinct species. The series THE MAD GARDENER is a development of that work. 

The project's starting point was a serpent star in the physical archive at Gothenburg Natural History Museum labelled with the nickname Medusa's head. The serpent star's multiple arms can act collaboratively, enabling them to navigate complex environments. The sea creature and its nickname reminded the artist of Haraway's 'tentacular thinking' concept and the text in which it was presented*. Fagerlund focuses on the tentacular in the project, partly inspired by mycelium and mycorrhiza, which connect species to share ecosystem resources. She also draws inspiration from the multi-headed fungus, which is neither an animal, a plant, nor a fungus but a single-celled organism that can grow several meters in diameter to form effective networks for cooperation and the transferal of information.

Haraway ends her text with the encouragement, ‘…chipping and shredding and layering like a mad gardener, make a much hotter compost pile for still possible pasts, presents, and futures.’

Like a 'mad gardener', Fagerlund has treated her own and the museum's image archive as a 'compost pile of past, present, and future'. Through a kaleidoscope of algorithms and digital tools, she has 'chipped, shredded and layered' the archives. New digital species emerged as the images were sequenced, fused, and mutated. A speculative ecosystem – where past and future coexist as tentacular hybrid species beyond traditional oppositions.

In THE DOPPELGÄNGER SERIES, Fagerlund has photographed nature reserves and primaeval forests. She has collaborated with artificial intelligence (AI) in some parts of the project, feeding an algorithm with her own photographs from nature reserves. The algorithm then attempts to create similar image landscapes via machine learning. The project is based on the fact that our old-growth forests are felled by cold cutting at a rapid rate and are nearing extinction. Primaeval forests are essential biotopes for biological diversity and climate change. In fiction and mythology, the presence of a “doppelgänger” is often seen as a harbinger of future misfortune. The exhibition confronts us with these omens embedded in our natural surroundings, and asks us to reconfigure our relationship to them. 

SEMINAR

In conjunction with the exhibition TENTACULAR THINKING, Galleri Image will present the seminar “Tentacular Thinking” at 2 p.m. on 3 May 2025 at Galleri Image.

The speakers will be:

•    Susanne Fagerlund, the artist behind the exhibition TENTACULAR THINKING 

•    Majken Overgaard, curator and writer specialized in technological art 

•    Nicolas René M Maleve, Postdoc at Digital Design and Information Science at Aarhus University 

•    Magdalena Regina Tyzlik-Carver, Associate Professor in Digital Design and Information Science at Aarhus University

The seminar is moderated by visual artist and curator Kirstine Autzen. 

The seminar will focus on glitching as a method in contemporary and historical art, with a special emphasis on digital and network-based practices, as well as the intersections of art, science, and technology.

Read more about the seminar on our website: https://galleriimage.dk/en/event/seminar-tentacular-thinking/

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Susanne Fagerlund is a visual artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with an MFA from Valand Academy (2021) and a Post-Master from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2023). As an artist, she explores the expanded field of photography in combination with various digital methods that pose questions about the reproduction of reality. The focus of her artistic practice explores the relationship and interdependence between humans and nature – often filtered through technology. Her installations oscillate between digital technologies, video, sound, sculptures, and photography. Since 2021, she has had 7 solo- and 20 group exhibitions, including Galleri 54/GIBCA EXTENDED (solo), Kungsbacka Konsthall (solo), Hasselblad Center (group) and Copenhagen Photo Festival (group). Copenhagen Photo Festival chose Fagerlund as one of the ‘Nordic Future Talents’ in 2023 for the platform FUTURE PHOTOGRAPHY. In 2023, she also collaborated with the Hasselblad Foundation on a project to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gothenburg’s Museum of Natural History. 

https://galleriimage.dk/

The exhibition and the seminar are supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Obel Family Foundation, the Louis-Hansen Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. 

Also check out other Arts events in Arhus, Exhibitions in Arhus, Workshops in Arhus.