American Swedish Institute’s 2026 Exhibition Schedule

MINNEAPOLIS, MN—The American Swedish Institute Museum and cultural center announces its upcoming 2026 year of exhibitions, beginning with Handwoven: Between Chaos and Order, Nordic Echoes: Tradition in Contemporary Art, and Eyes as Big as Plates. 

Opening February 14 to June 7, 2026, ASI presents Handwoven: Between Chaos and Order, a vibrant sensory textile exhibition by Swedish artist Emelie Röndahl (b. 1982). Röndahl creates large-scale figurative textiles that challenge and expand the possibilities of rya, a traditional Scandinavian weaving technique. This exhibition showcases many of her handwoven works, including two moving-image pieces and a newly commissioned self-portrait. 

Her large, woven pieces can be unclear at first, but they reveal themselves upon closer examination. Her works around the Turnblad Mansion ask viewers to slow down and look closely. Instead of trimming the excess threads, she intentionally lets them hang, where they appear to be “crying.” 

In addition to Röndahl’s work, the traveling exhibition of Nordic Echoes: Tradition in Contemporary Art, curated by the American-Scandinavian Foundation, will also be on view. This exhibition features stunning works by 24 artists from the Upper Midwest, including Tia Keobounpheng, John Frandy, Talon Cavender-Wilson, Mike Loeffler, Christine Novotny, and more.    

Through mixed media works, including wood, textile, clay, and metal, the exhibition challenges the dominant “heritage model” of ethnic folklore by emphasizing that “all tradition is change.”

ASI will present its next exhibition, Eyes as Big as Plates, a surreal photography exhibition by Finnish-Norwegian artists Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth, showcasing humans immersed in their surroundings, this summer from June 20 to October 25, 2026. 

This stunning photography series began as a playful exploration of characters from Nordic folklore and has evolved into a project spanning over 160 uniquely crafted portraits shot across 17 countries and five continents, from the Nordic to the South Pacific. They camouflage humans in organic materials sourced from the surrounding environment, creating surreal, other-worldly photography. 

Each portrait features one person, often an individual Hjorth and Ikonen met organically in their travels, who is actively impacted by the changing environment. The duo has documented farmers, surfers, grandmas, citizen scientists, wild boar hunters, mycologists, philosophers, and many more in their natural environments, capturing and challenging how humans view relationships with the living world. Ikonen and Hjorth’s artistic process blends humans into their surroundings and affirms co-existence as the only sustainable path forward.  

“ASI is entering another year of inspiring exhibitions that bring together tradition, innovation, and global perspectives,” says Molly Steenson, ASI President & CEO. “From the reinterpretation of traditional techniques to the surreal explorations of our relationship with nature, these exhibitions invite visitors to slow down, look closer, and experience the world in new ways.” 

More information about each exhibition and related programming will be announced and available on asimn.org.   

ASI 2026 Exhibitions Digital Press Kit. 

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