Carla Åhlander

Carla Åhlander (b.1966, Lund, Sweden) often works through photographic series, using this medium to provoke inquisitive looking. Exploring structures of power as well as those that appear as trivial, Carla’s quiet photos give new stresses to her subject matter. In doing so they reveal, as through a soft haze, memories and histories occluded by surface appearances.

Education. Carla studied art history, performance and photography in Sweden, Italy and Denmark between 1985 and 1994.

Select exhibitions. Holding Places, Belmacz, London (2024); Troubled Kinships, B-LA-M Festival, Berlin (2024); The Palliative Turn, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Germany(2022); Carla Åhlander & Camilla Løw, Belmacz, London (2022); Beuys Open Source, Belmacz, London (2021-22); Kunst im Traum, HilbertRaum, Berlin (2021); Geister (ghosts), SCOTTY, Berlin (2021); Alle Erinnerung ist Gegenwart, Neues Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop, Berlin (2019); Pelle d’oca, Villa Vertua Masolo, Italy (2019); BONE Performance Art Festival, Bern, Switzerland (2018); 9th Norwegian Sculpture Biennial, Oslo (2017); Gruezi, Kunstmuseum Olten, Olten (2016); InterKontinental, Belmacz Gallery, London (2016); Noteringar: tillstånd, platser, Fotogalleriet Format, Malmö (2014); Perspektiven, After Work, Schwartzkopffstraße nGbK, Berlin (2013); Anyone for cricket?, Kunstverein Horn, Horn (2013); Gastarbeiter, Italienisches Kulturinstitut, Wolfsburg (2012); Boredom, Essays & Observations, Berlin (2012); Mellan händelser, Martin Bryder Gallery, Lund (2011); Time is what keeps the light from reaching us, The Liverpool Biennial (2010); Gradual Change, Axel Nordin Gallery, Stockholm (2010); Immortality, TENT – Center for visual arts, Rotterdam (2009).

Awards and grants. Carla has received the Artistic Research Grant from Berlin Senate Department for Culture and has previously been the recipient of artist residencies at Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani in Venice, Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop, among others. She has produced series photographic works for public space in underground station Schwartzkopffstraße in Berlin (After Work/nGbK), in Cologne (The Reclaim Award) and in Vienna (Prospective Sites, Europart).

Carla lives and works in Berlin, where she teaches Photography at Bard College Berlin and at the Berlin University of the Arts.