Solveig Lønmo

About

Solveig Lønmo (b. 1982) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Art and Media Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. She has worked as a curator at the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum since 2014. Specialising in the museum’s extensive textile collection and the tapestries by the artist Hannah Ryggen in particular, Lønmo has curated two editions of the museum’s Hannah Ryggen Triennial (2019 and 2022). Her ongoing PhD project, Hannah Ryggen and the Politics of Textile (2023—2026), is a theoretical and critical approach to the processual and material aspects of the renowned artist’s oeuvre.

Lønmo embarks on a Research Fellowship at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from January - June, 2025.

Research

Ongoing PhD project: Hannah Ryggen and the Politics of Textile (2023–2026)

The motifs in Hannah Ryggen's (1894–1970) tapestries are explicitly political, figuratively expressing her moral attitude towards current social issues. My PhD project investigates the ways in which her choice of material and medium – textile fibres and tapestry – also implicates political intentions and consequences. Ryggen’s use of textile and her work’s interweaving with a complex textile tradition was both a feminist statement and a revolt against inherent hierarchical structures in the art world. For centuries, textile art has been regarded as women’s work and relegated to the margins of art history, dismissed as harmless, purely decorative and therefore less important. By choosing – and reformulating – tapestry as a genre and demanding entry into the innermost art circles, she presented her opinions not only as aesthetic statements with an ethical sting but also as a specifically material insistence on the importance of textiles’ place in art history. The PhD project will answer this by considering and developing the critical potential of textiles, demonstrating the rich complexity of Ryggen’s art.

The PhD is part of the research project MUTE, a collaboraton between NTNU, Museums of South Trøndelag (MiST) and the University of Bergen. MUTE is financed by The Norwegian Research Council.

I am also part of the research group Media, Data, Museums.

Publications

Scholarly articles

Lønmo, Solveig. (2022) I kunsthistoriens plisseer. Kunst og kultur. Volum 105. Peer reviewed.

Lønmo, Solveig. (2021) «Weaving Love and Terror: Hannah Ryggen’s We Are Living on a Star as Place, Crime Scene, and Memorial». In Conversations Across Place: Reckoning with an Entangled World, edited by Nicola Brandt og Frances Whorrall-Campbell. Berlin: The Green Box, 2021.

Books

Lønmo, Solveig (ed.). (2022). Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2022: Anti-monument. Berlin: Archive Books. ISBN 9783948212872

Lønmo, Solveig. (2021). Ta deg TID / Take your TIME. Trondheim: Museumsforlaget. ISBN 9788283051094

Lønmo, Solveig. (2019). Hannah Ryggen. London: Gudrun Publishing. ISBN 9781912366095

Lønmo, Solveig. (2019). Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2019: New Land. Trondheim: Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum.

Lønmo, Solveig (ed.). (2018). 125 objects, choices, stories. Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum 1983 - 2018. Trondheim: Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum.

Lundebrekke, Edith and Solveig Lønmo (ed.). (2016). Colour Space Motion through the artwork of Edith Lundebrekke. Trondheim. ISBN 9788230331682

Lønmo, Solveig (ed.) (2016). Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2016: We Live Upon a Star. Trondheim: Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum.

Vik, Leiken and Solveig Lønmo (ed.) (2016). Eksenter. Oslo: Press Forlag. ISBN 9788275477437

Lønmo, Solveig and Lars Erik Brustad Melhus (2015). Barnas Museum. Trondheim: Museumsforlaget. ISBN 9788283050271

Curated exhibitions

2023 Stiftsgården / Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Audience. Liv Blåvarp

2023 Gråmølna / Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Capsule. Margit Seland

2022 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2022: Anti-monument

2021 Stiftsgården / Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Plissé. Anne-Karin Furunes

2020 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Take your TIME

2019 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2019: New Land

2018 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: These are a few of her favourite things. Jorunn Veiteberg's jewellery collection

2018 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: 125 objects, choices, stories. Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum 1983 - 2018

2017 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Situations. Edvine Larssen

2016 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum and International Cultural Centre, Krakow: The Logic of the Local

2016 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Colour Space. Edith Lundebrekke

2015 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Flora

2014 Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum: Jens Erland. Born, not made

2012 Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum: KUNSTSF2012

Catalogue essays

For institutions such as Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Nils Aas Kunstverksted, Babel visningsrom for kunst, Trondheim Art Museums, Trøndelag senter for samtidskunst, and for artists such as Beret Aksnes, Ingrid Becker, Håkon Bleken, Brit Dyrnes, Nirmal Singh Dhunsi, Jens Erland, Karen Erland, Arne Ingvaldsen, Kjersti Johannessen, Marthe Kampen, Fie von Krogh, Eva Kun, Anne Kvam, Karin Aurora Lindell, Trude Westby Nordmark, Inger Johanne Rasmussen, Solrunn Rones, Barbro Maria Tiller, Gunhild Vatn, Lucia Veronesi, among others.

Språkvelger

Solveig Lønmo

Solveig Lønmo

About

Research

Publications

Hannah Ryggen Triennial 2022

Take your TIME

Plissé. Anne-Karin Furunes

Scholarly articles

Books

Curated exhibitions

Catalogue essays