2025 Chosen Families

(Close)

September 13 - 20, 2025

Tromsø Kunstforening,
Mellomvegen 82

Andrea White Hveding
Arnhild Haagensen
Beatrice
Bugarin & Castle
Finch
Frida Agerhus Vikström
Grusha Pankert
Jonathan Danzer
Kai Mikkel Balto
Laura Xinyue Zhou
Marianne Johansen
Marie Saure
Maya Acharya
Mayara Baptista
Onur Tayranoğlu
Pia Graf
Stix Omar
Subira Joy & Wandia Nduku
Tarinoita Utopiasta Collective

Curated by: Anna Näumann, Marion Bouvier,
Andrea Conradsen and Amalie Holthen

Open Out: Chosen Families

Chosen families can, for some, appear as a daydream.
As we grow up, and discover ourselves, we also discover other people, and an ever growing world around us. When that happens, we sometimes realise that what we thought of as a dream, was a wish and hope. The concept of family has been so defi ned by heteronormativity that it feels more than ever necessary to re-appropriate it, to allow ourselves to make families, beyond (but not excluding) blood ties, encompassing all the forms of love that tie us together to other beings, that make us feel safer, better, more at home in this world.

Some family ties are tied with the time spent together. Others instinctively feel like familiars. For a
Sámi, family can be the people who understand what that means. They can, at the same time, be the
people who experienced traumas, inherited them, and passed it on. It can be the one safe space where
difficult things can be talked about, in a society that teaches us that shame comes into play when other people find out. For a queer Sámi, family can sometimes be multiple. It can be different people and
places, who understands different sides of oneself.
We all deserve a village. We all need one.

How do we choose family, and get chosen back? How do people fi nd the villages we need, if the village we are born into can’t make enough room, or if we need multiple villages to have enough space for all of us? What have we been taught to expect from family, and what do we actually need?

To choose to stay, or to choose to walk away. To choose to believe that others will be there. Growing up surrounded by people who didn‘t know how to find the words to describe, to explain or understand. Meeting and hearing about the people who tried, who found words, changed words, made new ones, in an attempt to speak the unspeakable. We talk, and keep trying to find words that describe, and we need
someone who listens. Who hears us, and responds to what we are saying. So we gather around the table,
the bonfire, the places created for us to get together. We gather together in bed at night, or on a cold bench somewhere no one can see us. we call and we miss and we reach for each other. We need and we
need to be needed.

Where and how do you make your home with those you choose to stay in relation with? Lovers, friends,
cats, allies, plants, children, old people, acquaintances, artists, neighbors, many more? Who are the beings that populate your life, and in which living situations are you with them?

We would love to hear from all of your chosen families!

(Return to Projects)