Maria Lind
From the creation of an independent art space in a shopping mall (Salon 3, together with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, London, 1998–2000) to institutional leadership roles, Lind has engaged with the urgencies and specificities of place.
As e-flux co-editor Brian Kuan Wood writes: “Using flexibility, duration, dislocation and displacement, and in particularly collaboration, each project is dealt with on its own terms, and the accounted for in a curated context.
Indeed, while often conceived as isolated and structural solutions to problems posed in facilitating challenging work and making it public, from a curatorial perspective many of Lind's temporary and context-sensitive strategies can be considered paradigmatic in and of themselves.”[9] Beginning with her early writing for the free entertainment newspaper City Nytt and subsequent art criticism for the national newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, Lind's writing developed as an integral aspect of her work as a medium to produce discourse, generate debate and attend to artworks and artists.
Among the artists were Koo Jeong A, Ēriks Božis, Annika Eriksson, Peter Geschwind, Tobias Rehberger, Emese Benczúr, Simon Starling, Ann Lislegaard, Jason Dodge, Douglas Gordon, Claire Barclay, Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan, Elin Wikström, Liesbeth Bik & Jos van der Pol, Esra Ersen and Philippe Parreno.
At Moderna Museet Lind also curated What If: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design[18] with, among others, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jorge Pardo, Martin Boyce and Andrea Zittel.
A group of fifteen artists, curators and Critics (including Apolonija Šušteršič, Carey Young, Matts Leiderstam, Lynne Cooke and Jan Verwoert) acting as "Sputniks" (Fellow travellers), were invited to reimagine the role of this art institution and to work closely with it.
The group project Totally Motivated: A Sociocultural Manoeuvre[21] was a playful collaboration between five curators and ten artists exploring the relationship between professional and amateur art practices.
These included the symposia "Taking the Matter into Common Hands: On Collaborative Practices in Contemporary Art” (co-curated with Joanna Billing and Lars Nilsson) with, among others, Anton Vidokle, Chto Delat (What Is to Be Done?)
and STEALTH.unlimited;[23] "Citizenship: Changing Conditions” with, among others, Chantal Mouffe and Stefan Jonsson; “Why Archives?”; “New Relation-alities”; “A Fiesta of Tough Choices”, co-curated with Tirdad Zolghadr; “Travelling Magazine Table”; and the seminar series “Tendencies in Time”.
Together with artist Hito Steyerl, she initiated the research project and exhibition The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art,[25] with, among others, Yael Bartana, Haroun Farocki, Walid Raad, Omer Fast, Emily Jacir, Olivia Plender and Steven Shore.
It also exemplified her deployment of a methodology that she defined in a 2009 essay as "the curatorial" – that which "emerges in the multiplicity of connections and layers, in how they are orchestrated to challenge the status quo, with the works themselves placed at the center of the project".
A cafeteria was established by a local nonprofit organisation as a multifunctional place for hospitality and activities for new and regular visitors (as in the weekly gatherings "Swedish with Baby", or the Women's Café).
Among its long-term inquiries were Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies, 2012, with, among others, Doug Ashford, Mika Tajima, Matias Faldbakken, Wade Guyton and José Léon Cerillo; The New Model, in collaboration with Lars Bang Larsen, 2011–ongoing, with, among others, Magnus Bärtås and Ane Hjort Guttu;[34] The Eros Effect: Art Solidarity Movements and the Struggle for Social Justice, 2015.
The konsthall hosted solo exhibitions (Iman Issa, 2013; Ingela Ihrman, 2016; Leonor Antunes, 2017; Naeem Mohaiemen 2017), group shows (Soon Enough: Art in Action, 2018, with, among others, Zhou Tao, Joar Nango, Alma Heikkilä, Marie Kölbaek Iversen, Amol Patil and Anne Low), and commissioned works (Transmission from the Liberated Zones, Filipa César, 2015–2016; Red Love, Dora García, 2020; Sometimes It Was Beautiful, Christian Nyampeta, 2018; A Table Becomes a Table with Candlestick Legs, Anne Low, 2018).
The institution was also home to retrospectives (Marie-Louise Ekman accompanied by Sister Corita Kent, Mladen Stilinovic and Martha Wilson,[35] 2013; Standard Length of a Miracle, Goldin+Senneby, 2016), art walks, seminars, and screenings.
Among the featured artists were Ahmet Ögut, Suki Seokyeong Kang, Christian Nyampeta, Prajakta Potnis, Emily Roysdon, Amalia Pica, David Maljkovic, Gunilla Klingberg and Adam Pendelton.
[39][40] Among the participants were Alexandra Croitoru, Dan Acostioaei, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Ane Graff, Bella Rune, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Agnieszka Polska, Thao Ngyuen Phan, Ana Maria Millan, Behzad Khosravi Noori and Zelimir Zilnik.
Her great-grandfather Albin Lind [sv] (1901–1964) was active in the labour movement, employed as a metalworker for the mine in Riddarhyttan, and later a journalist and editor with a strong focus on literature and art.
From an early age, she showed an interest in culture, with libraries and the People's House (Folkets hus) movement, with its theatres and art institutions, becoming formative influences on her life.
