Samtidskonsten sporrar

Sweden’s Museums is initiating a new seminar series on contemporary art in collaboration with Maria Lind, Director of Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna.

Running from autumn 2025 through spring 2026, the series highlights the opportunities and challenges museums face when working with contemporary art. Through lectures and discussions with invited experts from Sweden and abroad, the seminars will explore how contemporary art challenges and inspires museums to think innovatively about collections, archives, and their role in society.

The series comprises five events. Each seminar takes place at a museum in Sweden in partnership with the host institution, and features an international expert. To enable broader participation, all seminars will also be streamed online. The aim is to deepen knowledge and awareness of how museums can engage with contemporary art across different fields.

Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiruna
Kin is Norrbotten County’s dedicated contemporary art museum, established in Kiruna’s Kristallen City Hall in 2018. With a focus on the Barents region, Kin develops exhibitions and projects across all 14 municipalities of Norrbotten, ensuring art is both accessible and locally rooted. The museum features a dynamic program of guided tours, workshops, and youth-focused activities—supported by its growing collection and its guiding principle to “dig where you stand.”

Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg
Founded in 1916, the Röhsska is Sweden’s only museum specializing in design, fashion, and applied arts. Located in a red-brick National Romantic building by Carl Westman, its collection spans over 50,000 objects—from ancient crafts to contemporary Scandinavian design, as well as East Asian art and haute couture. The museum engages visitors through permanent and temporary exhibitions, lectures, guided tours, and workshops.

ArkDes (Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), Stockholm
Located on Skeppsholmen opposite Moderna Museet, ArkDes is Sweden’s national museum and authority for architecture and design. Its collection holds around four million drawings, photos, models, and objects. The institution – housed partly in a Rafael Moneo–designed building – presents permanent and rotating exhibitions, practice-based research, and public programs supporting urban and design policies nationwide.

Silvermuseet, Arjeplog
The Silver Museum in Arjeplog is a cultural treasure trove nestled in the Swedish Lapland mountains, preserving over 13,000 objects that trace 10,000 years of human activity. It houses one of the world’s most significant collections of Sámi silver and is located in a former nomad school dating back to 1854. The museum also leads research initiatives on the Arctic cultural landscape and collaborates closely with Sámi communities.

Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm
Part of the National Museums of World Culture since 1999, the Museum of Ethnography holds around 220,000 artefacts reflecting the cultural anthropology of communities from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Its origins date to early Swedish colonial expeditions and scientific collections. Located in Museiparken at Gärdet, the museum is also home to the Sven Hedin Foundation.

More information about the saminar with Joanna Mytkowska at Kin can be found here.

More information and the full lecture schedule can be found here.