AMCN exhibition 2026

Petra Dalström

Det inderste lag, 2026

Discarded musical sheets, mahogany

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Deep within the building, behind some of the mobile shelving units, lies the music archive. A space without an audience in which the music is stored and circulated in its most quiet form. A pause between sounds.

The artwork places itself in this innermost layer.

Behind the shelving, in the gap between wall and system, three membranes emerge. They are cast in pulp made from discarded sheet music. Dissolved, mixed and pressed into a new surface. Traces of the print remains as small accumulations in the material. Something has disappeared, something else emerges.

The membranes appear organic, almost bodily. The surface carries imprints of objects from everday life of the musician, like fragments of a practice that normally does not leave any visible traces behind. Here, they are fixated within a porous structure that at once absorbs and releases.

The artwork is partially hidden. In order for it to appear, the wall unit must be put into motion. A displacement of an existing system where the viewer must actively unlock the space.

A handcarved wooden wedge forms another gesture. It keeps the shelves in place, but simultaneously encompasses a sensory reference to the string instrument. It is a shape that lies in the hand and catches the movement.

Between the functional and the malleable, a tension emerges. The artwork gathers what otherwise passes by unnoticed: materials, traces, movements. Not in the shape of an archive, but as a layer that continues to work within the building.