THE HUMAN ORCHID: BLOOM
Lena Bergendahl

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Opening:
Thursday, 3 September 2026, 5 pm – 9 pm
at Platform Stockholm, Lövholmsbrinken 12

Exhibition period:
4 September 2026 – 11 October 2026
Thursdays – Sundays, 12 – 4 pm
(free of charge)

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Lena Bergendahl
The Human Orchid: Bloom

The Human Orchid: Bloom is a solo exhibition by Lena Bergendahl that shows parts of the installation The Human Orchid as well as the newly produced video work Moldy Arcs.

Moldy Arcs is a short film that centers around a conversation between two characters, an artist and a filmmaker. They reflect on scents, permeation, decay, mold, and relationships – alongside vanitas still lifes, trickling milk, lush vegetation, and compost heaps. The film opens up to thoughts about how bodies and ideas dissolve, merge, and spill into their surroundings.

A similar kind of dissolution takes place in the spatial installation of The Human Orchid, which moves between finished film and branches of the process of coming into being. Bergendahl makes connections across natural science phenomena, philosophical thought models, and film and literary history references. In these connections, new stories arise that, like the orchid's underground rhizome, propagate themselves in a variety of ways.

In the film The Human Orchid, we follow a group of individuals who look to be human but whose behavior suggests something else. They seem to be connected to each other through a sort of network or root system. Through sessions reminiscent of psychological personality tests, their perceptions and orientation abilities are evaluated. Together, they perform different examinations to approach an understanding of humanity.

Other main characters are the bog and the fly orchid, a wild and very unusual orchid species that thrives in damp soil. The fly orchid has insect-like flowers and lives in symbiosis with another species altogether. To a male thread-waisted wasp, the fly orchid appears to be a female thread-waisted wasp. Ignorant of the fly orchid's true nature, the male wasp believes it is mating with the flower, thus contributing to pollination. Philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari describe this process in their book "A Thousand Plateaus", saying the boundaries between insect and flower are unlocked; the flower becomes more like an insect and the insect becomes more like a flower. "The Human Orchid" is about this dissolution of the lines between forms of existence, about mimicry and, through these methods, becoming a bit of something different.

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Lena Bergendahl (SE, b. 1982) is a Malmö-based artist working with moving image, film, and installation. Her practice explores perception, technology, and the politics of images, often examining how visual systems shape knowledge, belief, and embodied experience. Through research-driven projects, she weaves together documentary fragments, speculative narratives, and cinematic structures to question how reality is mediated and constructed.

Bergendahl has exhibited widely in Sweden and internationally, with solo exhibitions at Ystads Konstmuseum, Aldea – Center for Contemporary Art, Design and Technology (Bergen), Gislaveds Konsthall, Galleri Gerlesborg, and Celsius Projects. Her films have been screened at institutions and festivals including Oberhausen International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, and Umeå European Film Festival. She holds an MA from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, and is represented by Ystads Konstmuseum.

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Conceptualisation & Curation by Lou Mouw

The exhibition is supported by Stockholm Stad and the Swedish Arts Council.

The Human Orchid: BLOOM

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