Salad Hilowle: Inscriptions

Experience moving image, sound, and sculpture by internationally acclaimed Swedish artist Salad Hilowle as a poetic exploration of belonging, spectatorship, and the visibility of the African experience in Sweden over time.  

Hilowle’s work uncovers and illuminates the presence of African descendants in Swedish contexts, both historically and in contemporary society, offering deeper insight into the Afro-Swedish diaspora and the complexity of Afro-Swedish experiences. Born in Somalia, Hilowle moved from Mogadishu to Gävle, Sweden, at the age of seven. 

The exhibition features video, photography, sculpture, textiles, and performance. Hilowle’s cinematic approach to art-making allows him to seamlessly move between the micro perspective of a first-hand narrative and the broader view of the migrant experience. Through shifts in context, scale, color, and material, Hilowle invites the viewer to examine the familiar as if for the very first time. 

He synthesizes artifacts, private journal entries, public records, and other archival materials into works that reaffirm figures and events often pushed to the margins of Swedish art history. He fictionalizes plausible narratives, sometimes placing himself alongside other protagonists, either as himself—carrying the meaning his body and presence bring as an Afro-Swedish artist—or lending his figure to embody the stories of those no longer with us. His primary goal is to redirect the viewer’s focus toward the agency and presence of figures who were, and often still are, overlooked, rather than to dwell on the initial error of their omission. 

Hilowle’s first major solo exhibition outside of Sweden is a collaboration between the American Swedish Institute and The Somali Museum, curated by Berlin-based curator Sagal Farah. 

“Rather than focusing on repair, Hilowle shifts the perspective to the importance of centering complex narratives that reflect the diversity of the Afro-Swedish experience. He builds upon it by subtly referencing the works of renowned Swedish artists Karin Larsson and Anders Zorn, as well as members of the black artistic canon such as Carrie Mae Weems and Roy de Carava, ultimately giving homage to participants of our humanity who have multiple (be-)longings.” — Sagal Farah.

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