Malin Arnell and Mar Fjell
Photo by: Eva Vēvere
In residence: July - September 2025
Since 2017, Malin Arnell and Mar Fjell have shared a transdisciplinary art practice that moves across performance, research, and ecological inquiry. Together, they explore queer eco-erotic ethics, participatory practices, and vibrational togetherness, engaging deeply with both human and non-human entanglements. Their collaborative work embraces fluidity, transformation, and the interconnectedness of all living beings. Now, they bring their shared practice to Svalbard, adding new layers to their ongoing exploration of water, land, and the ecological challenges facing the planet.
During their residency in Svalbard, Malin and Mar will continue their site-responsive, embodied approach to artistic practice. Their work is often informed by the local environment and its ecological conditions. They describe their approach to water, a central theme in their practice:
“60 percent of our bodies are water, we are passages. About 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water, we are passages. Mar grew up on Lake Vänern which they said was an ocean. Malin longed to be one with the depth. Now we dream of canoe excursions and transient horizons where fixed ideas dissolve. We have no water drawn to our studio, but a manual pump in the yard. Rainwater waters our flowers. The outdoor toilet is a separate dry toilet. Our animals have three water bowls that are refilled about twice a day. We bathe naked in Lake Mälaren and shower in the gym. Water has become a scarce commodity. We scoop and scoop. There is nothing romantic about that. It is a global leak. The figures showing water consumption in the textile industry, meat production, agriculture and other human inventions are screaming loudly. The groundwater level drops. The ice melts and water never turns into snow. And here there are fissure valleys where dried up streams meander down. Three liters move through our bodies every day, we are passages. To understand and recognize the rights of water as part of natural-human rights, to overcome the violence to which it is exposed in the form of regulation, pollution, involuntary heating, emaciation, deportation, etc. Working with water challenges all dualities. It is life-giving, fluid and changeable.”
Malin Arnell
Dr. Malin Arnell (1970, Stockholm) is a visual and performance artist, researcher and educator. Over a period of twenty five years Malin has been engaged in collaborative practices, through an embodied and affective now. Through their commitment to a queer feminist, posthumanist and agential-realist approach they has developed an in-depth practice of knowing-through-doing, which includes an extended ecological sensibility. It was in dialogue with these disciplines and fields that they developed the 72-hours live PhD thesis in Choreography, Avhandling / Av_handling (Dissertation / Through_action) (2016), at Stockholm University of the Arts. During the recent years, they have mostly been working in two different collaborations: The public artwork Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge (2018-ongoing) together with artist Åsa Elzén, and together with artist Mar Fjell they have developed a few different projects and performances, for example In Each Other’s Company (2018-ongoing), and worked in different collaborative processes, for example together with Mustarinda (FI) and Mossuställningar (SE).
Website
Mar Fjell
Mar Fjell (1981, Stocholm) is an interdisciplinary artist. Mar’s practice is situated within ecological and socially engaged art and includes various media such as sound, text, video, performance and objects. Most of their work happens through collective processes and in collaborations. In recent years, Mar has been involved in projects related to transition work based on the element of water and soil, as well as establishing platforms for queer feminist engagements, together with the artist and researcher Malin Arnell. Together they have also exhibited, performed and organized workshops/courses at, among others, Survival Kit 15, Riga (LV), Something Else III Off Biennale Cairo (EG) Mossutställningar, Stockholm (SE), Mustarinda (FI), The Forage-Sculpture route, Berlin (DE), Amsterdam Spring Performance Festival (NL), Treignac Projet (FR), Academiae Biennale (IT) and during 2019 curated the exhibition “Circuit Training - a retrospective in being. Art Gallery C 15 years 2004-2019” at Konsthall C, Stockholm (SE).
Website