SANDRA MUJINGA INVITES YOU INTO THE SHADOWS
This autumn, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam presents Skin to Skin, the most ambitious project to date by Norwegian artist Sandra Mujinga.
In this immersive new installation, Mujinga transforms the museum’s basement into a shadowy, otherworldly environment. Visitors enter a dim, glowing world inhabited by 55 identical figures. Through repetition, Mujinga explores camouflage as a conceptual strategy. At first glance, the figures appear the same, yet their multiplicity invites deeper questions: Are we witnessing one body in transformation, a secret society, or a new species altogether?
These sculptural beings seem to blur the line between humans, deep-sea creatures, and extraterrestrial life. Some stand elevated on tall pedestals, while others fade into darkness. Mirrors multiply their presence into an eerie army of reflections. As visitors move through the darkened space, the green light gradually shifts and the sound evolves, disorienting the senses. Mujinga plays with contrasts—movement and stillness, visibility and disappearance—drawing visitors further into a disquieting and enigmatic experience.
The figures resemble avatars or clones: nearly human, yet not quite. Inspired by science fiction, Mujinga examines the concept of identity in a world where digital replication is possible. What does it mean to have a self when that self can be copied, shared, or absorbed into a digital realm? In a reality where presence can be everywhere, does one become more visible, or less?
At the same time, Skin to Skin raises urgent questions about how Black bodies are seen, monitored, and judged in public and institutional spaces: often visible, but rarely acknowledged or represented. Mujinga’s towering figures embody this tension. With their imposing presence, they radiate both protection and threat, recalling bodyguards or sentinels. Through them, Mujinga captures the complex dynamics between hypervisibility and erasure.
Light and sound are central to the experience, both composed by Mujinga herself. The environment constantly shifts. The green light alters perception, erasing skin tones, transforming textures, and stretching shadows. An atmospheric soundscape of electronic tones fills the space, further amplifying the sense of being somewhere unearthly.
Skin to Skin invites viewers to question how we define presence, identity, and the body in an increasingly digital, divided, and surveilled world.
