April 16, 2026, 1pm
Malmö 205 80
Sweden
Hours: Tuesday–Wednesday and Friday–Sunday 11am–5pm
Thursday 11am–7pm
Welcome to Objekt/Object: An Order of Things and the Construction of the World, an annual seminar for the critical examination of the role of museums in society. How is our future history shaped? How can we create sustainable museums through long-term responsibility and empathy? In these times when democracy is challenged and cultural heritage is increasingly the target of political interpretation, museums are standing at a critical crossroads in social debate.
Based on the collections of Malmö Museum and Malmö Art Museum, this seminar brings together researchers, curators and artists to explore how today’s curatorial decisions impact on the future.
The day is divided into four chapters and is opened by the City of Malmö’s councillor Janne Grönholm and the museum directors Biljana Topalova-Casadiego and Kirse Junge-Stevnsborg.
Chapter 1: On being a good foremother/forefather
The social philosopher Roman Krznaric (AUS) gives a digital lecture on his book The Good Ancestor, exploring long-term responsibility and empathy over generations—and what this implies for museum collections and society’s memories.
Chapter 2: Panel discussion—Collections for a future
How are future collective memories of society shaped by today’s curatorial choices? The panel consists of curators and directors from Malmö Museum, Julie Lejsgaard Christensen, artistic director of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, and Anas Alkhabour, PhD in archaeology and head of department at the Malmö City Archive.
Chapter 3: An Order of Things
Based on the exhibition An Order of Things, the discussion takes a deeper look at how the ordering and classifying within museums shape values and historiography. The exhibition is presented as a case study of an encyclopaedic museum, that was built in Malmö in the second half of the 19th century, where contemporary art is juxtaposed to natural, ethnographic and archaeological objects and art history objects.
Chapter 4: The Condition Report—Unlearning Imperial Plunder
The exhibition An Order of Things features the film The World Like a Jewel in the Hand (58 min) by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, professor at Brown University. The film is about the destruction of the Jewish-Muslim world, and the objects that were stolen during the colonial plundering of Africa that are now kept in museums far from their original territories. The tour is followed by a discussion between Azoulay, the curators Sara Rossling and Marie-Nour Hechaime. At the end of the day, the audience is invited to participate with questions and reflections.
About some of the participants
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, curator, filmmaker and professor at Brown University. Author of Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (2019) and other publications.
Anas Alkhabour, PhD in archaeology, head of department at the Malmö City Archive, former director of the National Museum in Raqqa, Syria.
Malin Forssell, curator at Malmö Konstmuseum—curator of the exhibition An Order of Things.
Marie-Nour Hechaime, curator and writer based in Beirut, formerly curator of contemporary art at the Sursock Museum.
Roman Krznaric, PhD in political science, senior research fellow at Oxford University, author of The Good Ancestor and other works.
Julie Lejsgaard Christensen, PhD in classical archaeology and museology, artistic director of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
Sara Rossling, curator and writer based in Malmö, with many years of experience as a freelance curator. She is curator at Lunds konsthall.
About the exhibition An Order of Things
Malmö Konstmuseum presents the exhibition An Order of Things, which turns a critical eye toward the museum’s own history and the ways objects have been collected and displayed—and how these practices shape our understanding of the world.
When Malmö Konstmuseum was founded in 1841 as part of Malmö museum, its ambition was to create an encyclopedic museum in the spirit of the Enlightenment. Through a universal system of knowledge, the world could be mapped and made comprehensible through collecting and classification. But divisions and systems are never neutral. With An Order of Things, the museum aims to highlight how museum collections both enable and limit our understanding of the world, and how they reflect power, hierarchies, and the writing of history.
The exhibition is built around thematic rooms—natural history, ethnography, archaeology, and art history —where works from the Collections of Malmö Konstmuseum and Malmö museum meet works by contemporary artists who challenge and reframe these categories. The exhibition title is a nod to Michel Foucault’s iconic book The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966), in which he shows how systems of knowledge continually shift and are replaced in ways we cannot predict. In a similar spirit, the museum’s historical Collections are examined to explore how they can be tested and renegotiated when placed in dialogue with contemporary art.
An Order of Things offers a space for reflection on what it means to order the world—whose stories, bodies, and experiences are given room, and which ones fall outside.
Participating artists: Ida Brockmann (DK), Mark Dion (USA), Maxime Hourani (LB), Clara Ianni (BR), Irene Margrethe Kaltenborn (NO), Michael Rakowitz (USA), and Cecilia Westerberg (DK). The exhibition also includes I Like Maps Because They Lie, curated by Marika Reuterswärd, and The Condition Report, where curators Marie-Nour Hechaime and Sara Rossling examine the politics of conservation and care through works by artists Noor Abed (PS), Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Omar Mismar (LB), and Nour Ouayda (LB) among others.
An Order of Things is curated by Malin Forssell, with Clara Hainault as project coordinator. The exhibition is on display until August 23, 2026
A book is published in conjunction with the exhibition
The publication An Order of Things presents a diversity of voices contemplating the representation of collections, and the gathering of objects and its consequences. The publication includes essays by:
Anas Alkhabour, docent in archaeology and head of department at the Malmö City Archive & Frida Larsdotter Lundgren, lawyer and art historian
Ida Brockmann, artist
Malin Forssell, curator, Malmö Art Museum
Marie-Nour Hechaime, freelance curator, based in Lebanon & Sara Rossling, curator, Lunds Konsthall
Anna Johansson, curator, Malmö Art Museum
Sunna Kuoljok, ethnologist and curator, Ájtte Swedish Mountain and Sami Museum in Jokkmokk
Marcus Markusson, curator, Malmö Museum
Marika Reuterswärd, curator and head of exhibitions and collections, Hallands Konstmuseum
Frederick Withling, PhD in history and author
