Backström will talk about her work, its themes and conceptual strategies, centering on a few projects from the last few years of her practice.
Fia Backström (Sweden) is an artist based in New York, NY. Backström’s work focuses on the fabric of co-existence and construction of collective subjectivity through imaginary and real systems that include the social life of images and language use. She turns social situations into operative displays where method and media will shift according to context, while fluidly reworking the terms of engagement. The work unfolds in a wide range of material media including photography, performance, writing, typography, objects, social exchange, and pedagogical methods. Her environments, events, and projects challenge habitual notions of what constitutes an exhibition through destabilizing format, site, and authorship; frequently works by other artists are incorporated, as well as participation by peers, visitors and institutional staff alike.
Fia Backström’s work has been part of numerous international exhibitions and projects. Backström represented Sweden in the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and was the subject of a survey at the Artist’s Institute (2015-16). Her work was shown in Greater New York, MoMA PS1 (2015) and The Whitney Biennial (2008). Other venues include: Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2019/2010); MAMAN, Recife (2016); MUSAC, Spain (2013); MoMA (2010); Tranzit, Prague (2008); and Serpentine Gallery, London (2007). Recent projects include: A Vaudeville on Mankind in Time and Space, Callicoon gallery (2018), Woe men - keep going, Mary Boone gallery (2017), The Shape of Co- to Come, ABF, Stockholm (2016), and ME have to be turned upside down to become WE, Zinc Bar, New York (2014). Her writings have been published in COOP A-Script, by Primary Information, (2016) and in magazines such as Artforum, Art on Paper, and North Drive Press.