Johannes Heldén is a visual artist, writer and musician. His interdisciplinary practice deals with poetry, ecology, sentience, interspecies communication and narrative structures.
His work has been shown at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale, the Riga Biennial, the Desert X Biennial in Palm Springs, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Momentum Biennial in Moss, Roskilde Festival and Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, Art Encounters Biennial in Timisoara, Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm, the Nordic Embassies in Berlin, IMPAKT Festival in Utrecht, The Fiskars Biennial, Kunsthall Trondheim, KUBE Ålesund, Wendys Subway/ISCP in New York, ISEA in Vancouver, the Jewish Museum in Stockholm, Broken Dimanche in Berlin, The Tampere Art Museum, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Inspace in Edinburgh, UB Center for the Arts Buffalo, The Fifth Moscow Biennale, Upfor Portland, The Media Archaeology Lab/University of Colorado, Volt in Bergen, ICIDS Istanbul, NIMK in Amsterdam, Dome of Visions in Copenhagen, UKS in Oslo among others.
Recent projects include Astroecology which was published simultaneously in three languages, made into an interdisciplinary performance at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and a digital artwork published by Bonniers Konsthall, and New New Hampshire & Clouds (for the Momentum biennial, hybrid installation/publication). He has published four music albums, recently Takträdgårdar (OEI) and System (Irrlicht), and seven digital works of poetry and visual art.
Awards and fellowships include the inaugural N. Katherine Hayles prize, the Åke Andrén Art Prize, the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation grant for young artists, the Kalleberg scholarship from the Swedish Academy. He was awarded the 2018 Iaspis New York Fellowship at ISCP, and is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts, Hawthornden Castle, CCA Andratx, NKD Norway, Rupert in Vilnius, et al.
Elsewhere:
Jeff VanderMeers introduction to Astroecology.
Represented by Cecilia Hillström Gallery.
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"I turn to Astroecology and its Encyclopedia when the weight of the actual world grows heavy, and I need to be surprised, or puzzled, or refreshed." — Ursula K. Le Guin
"A vision both nostalgic and premonitory. A transmigration of the mundane, decay upon decay, read as imminent luminescence”— David Sylvian