In Summer 2026, Malmö Konsthall will present the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili, who lives in Vienna. This will be the largest presentation of her work in Scandinavia and her first show ever in the south of Sweden.
Khalili’s work invites us to reflect on how our society functions and how the right to belong to our shared society is defined. Her work in many ways reflect the current situation in the EU (socially, politically, and historically), where the right to belong has been based on exclusion. Malmö Konsthall wishes to highlight the relevance of these issues for the region and for the City of Malmö, home to more than 180 different nationalities.
The exhibition seeks to weave together the various threads in Bouchra Khalili’s work from the early 2010s to the present day and will include installation, film, printmaking and textile. Malmö Konsthall will, among other works, present The Tempest Society, The Circle Project, The Public Storyteller, and her latest film The Public Scribe, which were recently shown in Paris as part of Khalili’s three solo exhibitions made for the Festival d’Automne 2025, a multidisciplinary arts festival featuring theatre, dance, music, performance and contemporary art, held every year in Paris.
At Malmö Konsthall, Khalili will let the works go in dialogue with the building’s existing architecture by creating a site-specific presentation. Newer works will meet older ones and together form a chorus of voices, where forgotten stories from the past are brought to light and resonate in our own time. The exhibition is based on the idea of the circle – the absence of a beginning and an end – but also on the circle as a gathering point for traditional oral storytelling. In Morocco, al halaqa, gathering in a circle around the storyteller, is a tradition that is several hundred years old. Halaqa literally means “circle”, “ring” or “assembly” in Arabic.
Based on how we move through the space, links, connections, and constellations between the works will crystallize. No single path is given, and all stories are equally important. Bouchra Khalili’s work allow us to envision a potential future in which the frameworks and hierarchies of the nation-state can be broken, and new, more equal conditions created.
The exhibition Bouchra Khalili at Malmö Konsthall has been produced in close collaboration with the artist and her gallery mor charpentier in Paris. The exhibition is supported by Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art and the Institut français.
Kilde:
Malmö Konsthall
Malmö Konsthall