Women’s Citizens School at Fogelstad: Art, utopia and togetherness

Contributors: Erika-Johannes Hoff Holmgren and Jonatan Habib Engqvist

A conversation on the legacy of Women’s Citizens School at Fogelstad and artistic practices created in its spirit, inspired by the large-scale artwork Senapsträdet och himlens alla fåglar by Siri Derkert on view at Skövde City Library and the biennial presentation at Skövde Art Museum.

Jonatan Habib Engqvist, curator and editor of Ord&Bild, meets writer Erika-Johannes Hoff Holmgren in conversation on the relation between artistic practices, practicing societal utopies and collective empowerment.

Erika-Johannes Hoff Holmgren is a writer, cleaner and librarian who is currently working on their novel Kvinnliga Medborgarskolan på Utö, mixing present day ghosts of family trauma and lost socialist dreams with the history of the women’s right’s movement in the 1920’s.

Jonatan Habib Engqvist is a curator, author, and occasional teacher, chairperson of the Swedish Curator’s Association and co-editor of the journal Ord&Bild. He has curated experimental projects and exhibitions including international biennales and festivals Art D-0 ARK Underground, VR Pavilion at 58th Venice Biennale, Cycle Music & Art Berlin/Reykjavík, Survival Kit Riga, Sinopale Turkey, Momentum Norway. He is founding director of the Curatorial Residency in Stockholm, and has been a.o. manager of visual art at Iaspis Konstnärsnämnden, and curator at Moderna Museet, Stockholm. His writing has been published widely in several languages in publications around the world.

The programme is organized in collaboration by Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Skövde Art Museum and Ord&Bild, whose first issue of 2025 was dedicated to the Women’s Citizens School at Fogelstad.