Isabella Tjäder

Isabella Tjäder (b. 1991), the Director of Index — The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, has a curatorial practice rooted in language, listening and the subversive potential of stories told well. Her work relies on radical imagination and emotional attentiveness, invites absurdity and embraces humor. She instituted the course Text as an Artistic Medium for the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm. She is an elected board member of the international residency program Nordic Art Association, for which she initiated an ongoing exchange collaboration with Hangar org (Barcelona).

Tjäder has taught at the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm, Konstfack – The University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm University of the Art, and the International Master's Program in Curating at Stockholm University.

She has curated exhibitions at institutions such as Kunsthall Charlottenburg (Copenhagen) and La Capella (Barcelona), and has produced exhibitions and artworks in collaboration with Moderna Museet (Stockholm), MoMA PS1(New York), Gropius Bau (Berlin), Secession (Vienna), rhizome (Algiers), Overgaden (Copenhagen), Kunsthall Trondheim (Trondheim), and Manifesta15 (Barcelona).

A prerequisite for learning

A brief address on the curatorial necessity of confusion, discomfort and being wrong