Exhibition Vanus Labor, which opens February 16 at the Academy of Fine Arts, is carried out as part of the Bernadotte Scholarship, which was awarded to the artist Salad Hilowle in 2020 for his work in highlighting people of African origin in Swedish art history. 

Salad Hilowle has for some time studied older paintings and sculptures whose motifs are people with the African diaspora in Swedish art history. By researching images and texts about these people, Salad Hilowle wants to deepen and portray this part of Afro-Swedes' being in art in a film and photo project.

I, as one of the blacks,
unfamiliar with the customs of the country.
Make a wish in my heart.

Gustaf Badin 1764

The title Vanus Labor [Fanatic Labor] is taken from David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl's work from the late 1600th century depicting a group of white children washing a black child. In the podcast Artistry Salad Hilowle tells us about the exhibition. 

A catalogue will be produced for the exhibition with texts by Ulrika Flink, Maria Lind, Mårten Snickare and Fredrik Svensk. > To the catalog

Salad Hilowle, born in 1986 in Mogadishu and raised in Gävle, took his master's degree in liberal arts at Kungl. Stockholm School of Art. He has previously studied at Konstfack, Linköping University and Glendale Community College, Los Angeles.

ABOUT THE BERNADOTTE PROGRAM

Since 2016, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, the Swedish Academy and the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture operate a joint grant programme to promote inter-Academic work for the benefit of researchers and young artists.

The Academy of Fine Arts' Bernadotte Program fellows have a studio at Fredsgatan 12 during the year of their fellowship and each receive a one-year work stipend. The fellowship aims to contribute to meetings between the arts and interdisciplinary development and provides opportunities for exhibitions, seminars, conferences, etc., in collaboration with the other academies and their fellows.

> Read more about the Bernadotte Program