Facultative symbiosis is the scientific term for a relationship in which two species derive mutual benefit from each other - while also functioning perfectly well on their own. The relationship is recipricol, and their shared life creates something new and more powerful. Although it is a term used in biology, it also describes in an apt way, the manner in which Jenny Magnusson’s and Patrik Elgström’s works gain strength from each other. Magnusson’s objects and spatial interventions have an unusual ability to activate the senses as well as the space where they are presented. There is a low-key but very audible action or gesture in the sculptures, which function not only as static objects but are also performative and scenic.

When these object-events meet the black & white and clearly defined photographs a game of contrasts and similarities arises. The images are both surface and body/form and the motifs both reflect and extend the presence of the objects, something that becomes particularly prominent when the photographs depict the installations (without being reduced to mere documentation). This meeting (encounter) is conditioned by a responsive interaction characterised by precision and playfulness that applies to both the relationship between image and object as well as with the room and context in which everything takes place. As a visitor, you are invited to discover how life consists of relationships, coincidences and time.

The dialogic dimension has been expanded in this exhibition to also include another facultative mutualism (another term for the mutual relationship). Photographer Gunnar Smoliansky (1933–2019) and sculptor Lars Kleen collaborated for over three decades and examples of their work are interwoven into the installation, further demonstrating the ability of sculpture and photography to extend one another.

Niclas Östlind, curator and PhD in photography at HDK-Valand

Jenny Magnusson (b. 1970) was educated at Valand Academy and Patrik Elgström (b. 1966) at HFF, both live and work in Gothenburg. Together, they have exhibited at Galleri Jochen Hempel and Künstlerhaus Bethaninen in Berlin, where Patrik Elgström was an IASPIS grantee in 2014–15, Värmland’s Museum in Karlstad, and Ystad Art Museum in 2014, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum in San Antonio Texas in 2016, Konsteepidemin Gothenburg and Galleri Rostrum Malmö 2017, Riss(e) in Varese Italy, the Royal Academy of Arts and WELD in Stockholm 2019, Platforms Project Athens and MIEC Santo Tirso Portugal 2020. They have also taken residencies in several places including Berlin, Vermont, Sopron Hungary, Sala Diaz Texas, Vienna and most recently as an IASPIS scholarship holder in Stockholm for Jenny and Paris for Patrik in 2022.