EXHIBITORS POLAR-TROPIC 2025 – SWAB Barcelona Art Fair

POLAR AND TROPIC

The tropics are those imaginary lines over which the sun, positioned at the zenith, pauses after completing a cycle to take a new direction. Humanity seems to be going through a similar moment, a state of solstice, and those structures, organic and artificial, that sustained the dominant form of civilization, cease to be useful, while from the margins others have already begun to appear and organize themselves.

It is also a time of extreme polarity, a property that divides the human, constructing the identity of subjects by opposition, but it represents the most basic form of attraction: it is the opposite poles that generate movement and impulse, uniting particles and allowing the flow of current.

Observing these phenomena, Polar and Tropic proposes a meeting between spaces that come from opposite extremes, the Nordic region and Southeast Asia, where vast ecosystems are sustained by networks of collaboration and solidarity. After a period that prioritizes the autonomy of the self and projects the state of balance based on radical individual interest, the practices emerging from these projects propose a new model, expanding the space for art and exploring other ways to establish relationships, create networks, and build common spaces.

The program brings together twelve projects through exhibitions organized around an agora, which hosts an extensive public program. Curated by Tenthaus, Bunga Siagian, and Jatiwangi Art Factory (JAF), it will feature a video project, a shared editorial space, a radio and listening station, and an area dedicated to dialogue and casual interaction, inspired by the Indonesian practice of nongkrong and the communal spirit of the sauna — meeting points that, although originating in geographically distant contexts, in POLAR AND TROPIC dialogue and coexist, revealing affinities in the construction of the commons.

The guiding question of this encounter is how to expand the network, and how to make it sustainable. How to continue? How to generate lasting structures of mutual support and collaboration, capable of sustaining possible futures?

LIST OF EXHIBITORS

All all all (Copenhagen)
Fuxia2 (Malmo)
Gelanggang Olah Rasa – GOR (Bandung)
Jatiwangi Art Factory (Majalengka)

K4+ Podium (Oslo)
MoT+++ (Ho Chi Minh)
NSFW (Gothenburg)
Pachinko (Oslo)

ss space space (Taipei)
Studio150 x The Oven (Bangkok, Oslo)
SUAVEART (Taipei)
Tenthaus (Oslo)

All all all

All all all is a Copenhagen-based exhibition platform curated by Klara Li and Sif Lindblad. Founded in 2022, the platform’s core lies in its facilitation of processual exhibition formats—challenging the notion of the finished art product and activating interdisciplinary artistic practices by inviting artists to investigate artistic gestures, rather than themes. Centered around the idea of an “open-source” archive, All all all is continuously shaped and reshaped by past projects, ongoing collaborations, envisioned futures, and, as such, is an unfinished experiment.

Proposal

‘Everything we have’ playfully subverts the conventions of commercial galleries at art fairs, which typically present a roster of in-house artists. Rather than narrowing our selection, All all all brings together all the artists we’ve collaborated with over the years, each showing one art work. This archive is displayed on a shelf by italian designer Enzo Mari, whose philosophy of open-source design and collective effort informs both the structure and the concept of the presentation—framing the archive as a living document of ongoing artistic relationships.

Fuxia 2

Fuxia 2 is a collective project seeking to bridge the cultural scene of Southern Sweden/Copenhagen with artistic processes from Latin America and the South(s) of Europe. While it started as an itinerant platform, Fuxia 2 runs a physical space in Malmö since 2023, where they host exhibitions, performances, parties and public encounters. Embracing both humor and dissent, Fuxia 2 fosters the creativity sparked by shared obsessions and nightlife experiences.

Proposal

Fuxia 2 presents the work of Swedish-Somali photographer Ikram Abdulkadir (1995, based in Malmö) and Swedish/Kosovar-Albanian multidisciplinary artist Tringa Gashi (1996, based in Malmö/Copenhagen). Abdulkadir and Gashi show an artistic sensibility that is deeply connected to contemporary visual culture, exploring questions around belonging, image production and value. They both offer a complex portrait of their surroundings, one that challenges what “life in the Nordics” is expected to look like.

Gelanggang Olah Rosa - GOR

Studio GOR has been a one-stop shop for all creative needs and vision since 2011. A full-service production studio specializing in bringing unique and imaginative creations to life, with a comprehensive range of services for fellow artists. Comprehensive art handling services, and a commitment to excellence extend beyond production, ensuring your artworks are treated with the respect and care they deserve. We welcome collaborations across disciplines and embrace the unique challenges and opportunities presented by each project.

Proposal

This project explores how the smallest elements can reveal keys to coexistence. Through Luqi Lukman’s work Paper Bricks—a reconstruction of a typical Perumnas 18 house—and interventions by ten artists, it reflects on forced collectivity in confined spaces. Each artwork, placed inside brick vitrines, represents a “you” and a “me” that together form the “we.” In Indonesia, where the right to decent housing is guaranteed by law, we ask: are current standards sufficient to preserve autonomy and well-being in shared living?

Jatiwangi Art Factory - JaF

Established in 2005, Jatiwangi art Factory (JaF) is a community that embraces contemporary arts and cultural practices as part of the local life discourse in a rural area. At the beginning of the twentieth century, its clay industry made Jatiwangi the biggest roof-tile-producing region in Southeast Asia.
A hundred years later, in 2005, using the same clay, JaF encouraged the people of Jatiwangi to create a collective awareness and identity for their region through arts and cultural activity. In doing so, JaF tries to cultivate clay with more dignity and to raise the collective happiness of the community

Proposal

Their manifold activities, always involving the local public, include a village festival, a video festival, a music festival, a residency program, a discussion series, and a TV and radio station.

K4+ Podium

K4 Galleri is a non‑commercial, artist‑run gallery for video art, film and moving images. Since its inception in 2016, K4 Galleri occupies a 20 m² black box facing the street in Oslo city centre. The programme cultivates a spectrum of contemporary AV practices, reflecting the ever‑expanding discourse within the field.

Podium, over the past years, Podium has established a space of encounters, interactions, and reflection for a wide audience with exhibitions and events by emerging and established artists. Our work is informed by our ambition to contribute with an angle that we believe is relevant artistically, socially and politically for the multifaceted cultural fabric.

Proposal

Podium presents two young emerging Oslo-based artists, Dev Dhunsi and Louise Herreira, with sculptural works. Representing K4 Gallery, the presentation also includes the up-and-coming artist Thyra Dragseth.

MoT+++

MoT+++ is an independent artist-run contemporary art space in Saigon, Vietnam. Our fluid and responsive approach to programming prioritizes artists by acknowledging the creative process as often non-linear and divergent, encouraging them to experiment with the boundaries of their practice.
Born as a project space in 2015, our list of +1 activities is expanding as the space continues to grow and evolve its artistic and collaborative practices. Our initiatives include A. Farm international art residency, +1 contemporary project, MoTsound, MoT collective, +1 museum by any other name, and +1 nice place for experimentation.

Proposal

MoT+++ presents works by Duy Nguyen, Kim Duy, Cam Xanh, and Wu Chi-Tsung: four distinct practices drawn into quiet proximity through meditations on stillness, language, and the architectures of care. From Nguyen’s inherited trauma to Kim Duy’s performative rewriting of the Vietnamese dictionary, Cam Xanh’s participatory contract for planetary kinship, and Chi-Tsung’s inquiry into displaced sacred objects. Identity is not asserted but rehearsed, healing not performed but practiced. Rooted in Vietnam and reaching beyond, the presentation gestures toward shared understanding, softness, and a common vocabulary for becoming.

NSFW

NSFW is a contemporary art platform based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Operating both online and offline, it supports an annual exhibition program alongside artist talks, roundtable discussions, and the production of artistic and cultural content in both print and digital formats. Through a flexible approach that adapts to each project’s context, NSFW fosters critical exchange and artistic experimentation.

Proposal

For Polar & Tropic, the proposal is to present the work of Oda Haugerud (b. 1990, SE), a Malmö-based multidisciplinary artist whose installations incorporate sound, video, kinetic sculpture, 3D prints, text, and repurposed materials. Haugerud works with technological byproducts, broken instruments, and urban debris, embracing site-specificity and collaboration to let each piece be shaped by its surroundings. She holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy (2024) and a BFA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (2018), where she was nominated for the GRA Awards. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at Good Weather (US), NSFW (SE), and Heerz Tooya (BG).

Pachinko

Pachinko is an artist-run space located in Grønlandsleiret 47C, Oslo. Pachinko aims to present experimental cross-disciplinary projects by regional and international artists. Through a Nordic network, an open structure and a flexible programme, Pachinko seeks to provide a testing ground for artistic and social discourse.

Proposal

Pachinko presents Theodor Nymark (b. 1997, DK) and Nikhil Vettukattil (b. 1990, Bengaluru, India,based in Oslo), examining environmental transformation through botanical material engagement.
Nymark’s Impressionisms employs wildflower pigments from Copenhagen’s biodiversity meadows on birch panels with acetone grid systems. Vettukattil cultivates the “dancing plant” Codariocalyx motorius with electronic soundscapes that trigger movement responses, connecting Nordic urban ecology with South Asian botanical knowledge across polar and tropical zones.

SS space space

SS space space is both a research collective exploring notions of space and an artist-run independent space in Taiwan led by Sean Tseng and Sara Wu. Since 2020, ss space space has formed its practice through a series of public and socially engaged curations, inviting creatives from various backgrounds to participate. Their projects have been facilitated and exhibited in the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain and Taiwan. Collectively and critically, ss space space explores diverse aspects of art by proposing questions and experiments and inviting multiple triggers for reflection.

Proposal

SS space space is pleased to announce its continued participation in SWAB 2025 with A Sense of Elsewhere, a group presentation showcasing a selection of Asian artists who reinterpret the everyday within a world shaped by globalisation and digital acceleration. The exhibition features Taiwanese artists Sara Wu, Chih Chiu, Hojan and Pingen Kuo, alongside Korean artist Seungwon Jung. Through painting, sculpture, photography and kinetic installation, the works draw upon Eastern philosophies to emphasise interconnection and heightened awareness. Employing refined material transformation, they offer quiet reflections and alternative ways of seeing amidst the subtle tensions of contemporary political, ecological and social conditions.

Studio150 x The Oven

OVEN is a transnational network for artistic exchange.
Rooted in collaboration, OVEN brings together collectives across Southeast Asia and the Nordics to foster shared learning, co-thinking, and long-term engagement. We view art and design not as outcomes but as tools for observation, friction, and transformation.
It takes shape through art projects, exhibitions, research, residencies, workshops, publications, gatherings, and moments of exchange, adapting to the context around it. We welcome those with a shared curiosity to think collectively, hold space for difference, and explore new ways of moving forward.

Proposal

Radiant Blessing responds to the theme of urgency through Mutelu, a contemporary Thai term for superstitious practices that gained mainstream popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The exhibition reflects on how spiritual belief becomes a tool to navigate uncertainty, particularly through objects believed to offer protection, luck, or control. Lightboxes with microscopic images, chant recordings, symbolic offerings, a video translation, and related merchandise reimagine spiritual symbols in a new setting, exploring how rituals and beliefs adapt to the pressures of
everyday life in Thailand.

SUAVEART

SUAVEART, a curatorial research institution, explores environmental, nonhuman, and nonplace issues in island contexts, connecting art, science, and life. Since 2008, it has focused on Southeast Asian contemporary art. Founded in Taiwan in 2015, SUAVEART fosters experimental cultural practices, residencies, and transnational collaborations, supported by consultants, industries, and communities. Recent activities include: APARN 2025 Conference (Bangkok), TransCultural Exchange Conference (Boston, 2025), group exhibition Convergence (Jogja Art Weeks 2025), and Sense & Logos of Muscle & Texture (Shanghai, 2025).

Proposal

Camphor Tree Chronicles: Rooted in Elsewhere takes the camphor tree—long revered as a “tree of longevity”—as its point of departure. This exhibition reflects on plant memory, “slow time,” and more-than-human perspectives, connecting ecological, historical, and cultural narratives. Recent scientific reclassification of camphor and cinnamon parallels shifting identities in society. Featuring artists from Taiwan and Indonesia, the project explores locality, colonialism, diaspora, and the Anthropocene through the camphor tree’s journey across history, science, and art. Visitors are invited into a multisensory experience—smell, touch, vision—where plants emerge not as backdrops, but as active choreographers of empathy and regeneration.

Tenthaus

Tenthaus appears at SWAB as an infrastructural host, not as a single project. Through the Tenthaus booth, Studio150’s The Oven booth, and Belén’s public program, we demonstrate a shared way of working that is collective, porous, translocal, and practice-based.

Tenthaus is an infrastructure that hosts, supports, and moves through projects like The Oven. It is defined by relationships and methods rather than outputs. We focus on hosting instead of curating, gathering instead of scaling, and rehearsing instead of finalizing. It operates as a fluid set of practices rather than a fixed structure.

Proposal

The Tenthaus booth presents a soft, modular environment reminiscent of a working table or checkpoint. It invites visitors to interact with diverse fragments such as zines, maps, QR codes, sound recordings, ceramic tokens, and unfinished publications. These elements collectively map Tenthaus’s dynamic presence across international platforms, key projects, and the editorial collaboration.The booth functions as an activatable space offering ready-to-use structures, research and development models, and pedagogical protocols. It embodies Tenthaus’s commitment to experimentation and collective practice, encouraging visitors to engage with evolving methods rather than fixed outputs.