SEPTEMBER SESSIONS
— A Contemporary Art Festival in Stockholm
11–14.9 2025
September Sessions – A Contemporary Art Festival in Stockholm is back with a prolific programme spread over various art spaces as well as public locations in the city. The four-day festival hosts exhibitions, performances, concerts, film screenings and social gatherings. September Sessions celebrates the diversity of the Stockholm art scene while also creating a platform for international curators, temporarily transforming the city through an infusion of international verve.
During the festival, a series of exhibitions and events will be organised by Accelerator, Beau Travail, Bonniers Konsthall, Filmform, IASPIS, Index, Konsthall C, Liljevalchs, MEGA Foundation, MDT, as well as a specially curated program by Berlin-based curatorial collective anorak, run by Lukas Ludwig and Johanna Markert, at Antics, Cues and Mint.
anorakanorak is a Berlin-based curatorial collective and independent art space with a focus on artists’ moving image, performance, and sound, run by Lukas Ludwig and Johanna Markert. anorak offers a space for sincere and mutual exchange, enabling artists to produce, present, and critically discuss their work. Shaped by long-term collaborations with artists and cultural initiatives, anorak develops site-specific presentations, curates screenings, and hosts the anorak studio programme, which invites artists based in or passing through Berlin to experiment and share ideas with peers and the broader public.
Recent projects include: Finite Eyes — an evening of sound and moving image developed with Ora Clementi (2023–25), anorak, Berlin; Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart; Composite, Melbourne; Perfectly Reasonable Deviations — performance and screening co-organised with James Richards at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2024); Love Test by Rosa and Dylan Aiello, anorak, Berlin (2023) and Mint, Stockholm (2024), Gravity & Grace — a play to be read outdoors by Ana Wild and Johanna Markert; anorak, Berlin (2023); Diver Festival, Tel Aviv (2021).
www.anorakanorak.com
Houred Time
The third edition of September Sessions presents Houred Time—a four-day programme curated by anorak (Johanna Markert and Lukas Ludwig), with newly conceived work by artists Annika Eriksson, Nour Ouayda, and Jules Reidy.
The invited artists share a language of estrangement that unsettles habitual ways of seeing and feeling. Working across time-based media, their distinct approaches include speculative narration, staged observation, and the deconstruction and spatialisation of sound. Houred Time unfolds through performance, installation, film, and conversation across various venues in Stockholm, including Antics, Cues, and Mint.
Houred Time is a mistranslation of the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann’s 1953 poetry collection Die gestundete Zeit, where ‘gestundet’ means deferred or delayed. In a financial context, it is a term used to describe an extension of due debt; its temporal application is more literal—time broken up into regular units. Bachmann’s poetry is characterised by fragmentation, repetition, and an acute awareness of mortality; the title poem is bookended by the phrase “Harder days are coming” invoking a temporality shaped by inevitability and return.
Her poetic rigour exploring interpersonal boundaries and the potential of language in a postwar landscape offers a perspective on memory, grief, and historical trauma that resonates with the festival’s contemporary premise: that living through horror demands new, situated forms of perception and imagination. Houred Time draws on the belief that art must show radically different ways of expressing its time, rather than repeat its dominant phrases. Bachmann’s voice—unblended, at once high and low-pitched—becomes a figure for a poetics that resists coherence, channelling the dissonant and the strange within the familiar. In a similar way, the practices brought together in Houred Time favour the speculative over the documentary, embracing a poetic urgency that seeks to imagine what could be, rather than merely recording what is.
Artist Bios
Annika ErikssonAt the centre of Annika Eriksson’s artistic practice is an interest in social interaction: how do we live together, what kind of societies do we create, and what happens at the margins or in the transition from one order to another? Her projects recurrently engage with relations between humans and other animals—of our interdependence, slippages and connection, but also registers of violation and disregard. She has exhibited since the early 1990s, including the biennales of Istanbul, Venice, São Paulo, and Shanghai, and in institutions such as Bonner Kunstverein; Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; Tate Liverpool; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Hayward Gallery, London; and Moderna Museet, Malmö, and Stockholm, amongst others.
Nour OuaydaNour Ouayda is a filmmaker and film programmer. Her films experiment with various forms of fiction making in cinema. She is a member of The Camelia Committee with Carine Doumit and Mira Adoumier and part of the editorial committee of the Montreal-based online film journal Hors Champ. Between 2018 and 2023, she was the partnerships coordinator then deputy director aetropolis Cinema Association in Beirut where she managed and developed the Cinematheque Beirut project. She also teaches film programming in Beirut.
Jules Reidy Jules Reidy makes song cycles which abstractly deal with devotional love, transcendence and death of the self. They use materials such as guitars, voice, percussion, and found sounds, deconstructing, and augmenting them through non-standard tuning systems, polyrhythmic structures, electronic processing, and spatialisation. They aim to express and invoke states of uncanniness, dissociation, dys/euphoria, imagination, and void. They have recently released music on Thrill Jockey, Black Truffle, Shelter Press, Editions Mego, and Longform Editions and performed in live contexts such as CTM Festival, Unsound, Big Ears, Primavera, and ReWire. Their current collaborations include projects with Judith Hamann, Ivan Cheng, and Andrea Belfi.
COLLABORATORS
Accelerator
Accelerator is an exhibition space where art, science and societal issues meet. It is part of Stockholm University. The mission of Accelerator is to engage actively with society, producing exhibitions presenting international and Swedish contemporary art.
Accelerator organises a public program of presentations and talks with artists, researchers, students and the general public. Accelerator’s programme is driven by an ambition to contribute towards a transparent and empathetic society by opening up opportunities for art to spark discussions and interdisciplinary dialogue.
OPENING HOURS
Thursday: 11–17h
Friday: 11–17h
Saturday & Sunday: 12–16h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://acceleratorsu.art
Frescativägen 26A, 114 18 Stockholm
Beau Travail
Beau Travail is an artist-run gallery founded by Marie Karlberg in Stockholm in February 2024. With a focus on multidisciplinary, project-based work, the space forgoes exclusive representation in favor of a collaborative curatorial model shaped closely with exhibiting artists. Beau Travail positions itself as a responsive and artist-first platform within the contemporary art landscape.
OPENING HOURS
TBA
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://beautravail.se
Skånegatan 108, Stockholm
Bonniers Konsthall
Since it’s opening in 2006, Bonniers Konsthall has commissioned and exhibited works by numerous Swedish and international artists. As a non-collecting institution, Bonniers Konsthall works closely with artists to realize their visions and engages diverse audiences through a range of programmes and publications. Conveying the new is central to our work. Bonniers Konsthall has its roots in the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation, which was created in 1985 by Jeanette Bonnier in memory of her daughter Maria, and which yearly awards grants to young artists.
OPENING HOURS
Wed: 12–20
Thu-Sun: 12–17
Free entrance on Friday
DURING THE FESTIVAL
Marthe Ramm Fortun
Marthe Ramm Fortun forms emphatic and meaningful connections with her audience with distinct performance series and site specific sculptural environments. Her ambulating performance practice often calls attention to the vulnerability of individual bodies, confronting a gulf between the historically governed representation of the female body in a time of extreme violence, extending to the barriers that surround life and work when you belong to one or more categories of otherness.
www.bonnierskonsthall.se
Torsgatan 19, 113 21 Stockholm
Cues
Cues serves as an intermittent venue run by Anton Halla and Annie Åkerman, hosting a variety of presentations centered around the scenario of a bar. Based in a residential cooperative in central Stockholm, it operates in a basement that echoes its former use. The programming consists of artistic responses to using its premises both as backdrop and as a site for informal encounters. Activities have no fixed format or duration and cater to the preferences of each invited guest.
OPENING HOURS
TBA
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
Filmform
Filmform is one of the oldest organizations in the world devoted to video art and experimental film and was founded in 1950 in Stockholm, Sweden, originally as an independent film co-op. Later it was re-organized into a foundation and is now the most important driving force for artists' films and videos in Sweden – working with archiving, distribution as well as dissemination of knowledge and information. Filmform is further an important intermediary between independent filmmakers and governmental agencies and is often engaged as an advisor to museums, galleries, universities, and festivals. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers within the field of moving images.
Filmform has its origin in the post-war generation of artists that experienced the cinema as a new and expanding creative field. In film – personal expression, free from the regulations of convention, could maintain its independence. Artists' films – as well as videos later on – made it possible to connect to the world and to modern times. Filmform has been the hub of artists' films and videos since several decades. Artists like Viking Eggeling, Peter Weiss, and Gunvor Nelson have been important in this process, and new names are merging continuously. It is a beautiful coincidence that the first film that was planned when the association once formed in 1950 was called Vision. The vision of artists moving images is under constant review. Works from Filmform are available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
OPENING HOURS
Friday: 9.30–17h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
www.filmform.com
Svarvargatan 2, 112 49 Stockholm
IASPIS
IASPIS is the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts. The programme is aimed at professional artistic practitioners within, for example, visual arts, crafts, design, illustration, architecture, spatial and urban practice.
IASPIS programme include residency programmes in Sweden and abroad, public programmes in Sweden and internationally, publications, expert visits programmes, regional and international collaboration programmes, and an archive.
IASPIS programme aims to contribute in various ways to developing and deepening international contacts between practitioners, organisations, audiences and markets and in this way contribute to artistic development and improved job opportunities.
OPENING HOURS
Friday 20/9: 13–20h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
www.iaspis.se
Maria Skolgata 83, 118 53 Stockholm
Index
Index – The Swedish contemporary art Foundation has a history of more than 40 years behind it. Firstly, with a focus on photography and publishing, and for the last 25 years with contemporary art as its cultural sphere.
Index has multiple public roles as an art institution: We are a platform for artists and for audiences. We understand that the role of an art institution like Index does not begin and end with an exhibition – instead there is an ongoingness to the activities, research processes, learning programs and relationships between Index, artists and audiences. Index works with an artistic conceptual approach that aims to carve out space and time for criticality, dialogue, curiosity and building discursive situations that develop the role of art today. The size of Index is “human” and the contact with its visitors is defined as a permanent dialogue. Being placed at the center of Stockholm helps Index to be understood as a key institution and node within contemporary art networks.
OPENING HOURS
Thursday: 18–22h
Friday: 12–18h
Saturday & Sunday: 12–16h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://indexfoundation.se
Kungsbro strand 19, 112 26 Stockholm
Konsthall C
Konsthall C is a public work of art, an urban renewal project and an art institution located in a former communal laundry in Hökarängen. The objectives of Konsthall C are to lead socially engaged practices, support new curatorial and artistic experiments, and contribute to discussions on justice, democracy, and urban development. Ulrika Flink, the Artistic Director, presents a program that delves into the influence of voice and language on personal and collective expressions of rights. The program emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness recognizing oneself in others. It brings together practitioners who engage in collective thinking, incorporating powerful language, poetry, and listening tools.
Through this combination, the program sheds light on the consequences of structural violence and advocates for alternative forms of resistance and radical liberation.
OPENING HOURS
Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday: 12–17h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://www.konsthallc.se
Cigarrvägen 14, 123 57 Farsta
Liljevalchs
Liljevalchs belongs to the City of Stockholm and was inaugurated in 1916 as the first public art space for contemporary art in Sweden. Today, Liljevalchs stays true to its founding intentions of nurturing an art institution of national and international status, showing the most relevant contemporary art. The original building was designed by architect Carl Bergsten and is located on the scenic Djurgården in Stockholm. The new extension Liljevalchs+ was completed in autumn 2021, designed by architect Gert Wingårdh in collaboration with glass designer Ingegerd Råman.
OPENING HOURS:
Thursday: 11–20h
Friday–Sunday: 11–17h
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
Liljevalchs+, Falkenbergsgatan 3, 115 21 Stockholm
MDT
MDT Moderna Dansteatern is a platform for contemporary dance and choreography, located on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. With a theatre and studios at its heart, MDT co-produces and presents work by both Sweden-based and international artists. As a space for artistic development, critical discourse, and choreographic experimentation, MDT supports practices that challenge and expand the field of dance.
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://mdtsthlm.se
Slupskjulsvägen 30, 111 49 Stockholm
MEGA Foundation
MEGA Foundation is an intimate Stockholm-based gallery space, founded in 2015 by independent curator Maria Elena Guerra Aredal, exhibiting new contemporary work. The physical space in which it was originally situated had two simultaneous functions: a production facility for a fire-fighting system and an art space, thus giving the space its unique and experimental characteristics.
Between 2018 and 2020, MEGA joined forces with yek (independent curator Asrin Haidari) to open a new contemporary art space, Tegel. The venue was shared between the two and they produced both joint and individual exhibitions and projects.
Today the gallery is working from the intimate sphere of the private apartment.
OPENING HOURS:
TBA
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://www.mega-foundation.com
Mint
Mint is a non-profit exhibition space situated in the Workers' Educational Association in central Stockholm, initiated in 2019 by curators Emily Fahlén and Asrin Haidari. Focusing on contemporary art and poetry, Mint is embracing experimental practices, cross-generational encounters and site-specific interventions. As the practice of a museum relates to – and is in dialogue with – its collection, Mint allows its program to be inspired and directed by the history of the building and its events, struggles, organisations and cultural expressions.
OPENING HOURS
Thursday: 17–20 (opening)
Friday: 11–18
Saturday: 12–18
Sunday: 12–16
DURING THE FESTIVAL
TBA
https://m-i-n-t.se
Sveavägen 41, 111 40 Stockholm
About
CONTACT
info@septembersessions.se
COLOPHON
Founders: Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation & Mint
Curators 2025: anorak
Producers: Alice Söderqvist and Isabella Tjäder
Coordination and communication: Nora Pollak
Graphic Design: Aron Kullander-Östling
Web Development: Robert Fransson
With generous support from the City of Stockholm, The Swedish Arts Council, and the Region of Stockholm.
