Fia Backström,
2019
Fia Backström (Sweden) is an artist based in New York, NY. Fia Backström's work focuses on the fabric of co-existence and construction of subjectivity through the social life of images and language. Backström works with structures of political address, ecologics, and pedagogical methods, while destabilizing authorship. She turns social situations into operative displays where method and media shift according to situation, while fluidly reworking the terms of engagement. Backström's work unfolds in a wide range of media, including photography, writing, typography, objects, installation, and performance. Her environments, events, and projects challenge our habitual notions of what constitutes an exhibition–through format, institutional context, and dialogue with the audience, even the works of art presented; frequently works by other artists are incorporated, as well as participation by peers, visitors and institutional staff alike.
Fia Backström’s work has been part of numerous international exhibitions and projects. Recent solo projects include A Vaudeville on Mankind in Time and Space, Callicoon gallery (2018), Woe men - keep going, Mary Boone gallery (2017), The Shape of Co- to Come at ABF, Stockholm (2016), and ME have to be turned upside down to become WE at Zinc Bar, New York (2014). She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as Greater New York, MoMA PS1 (2015), MoMA (2010), and The Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2008) in New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010); Serpentine Gallery, London (2007); and Tranzit, Prague (2008). Backström was the subject of a survey at the Artist’s Institute in 2015 and represented Sweden in the 54th Venice Biennale (2011). Her writings have been published in magazines such as Artforum, Art on Paper, Pacemaker and North Drive Press.