Tom Sandqvist: There Was a Damp Cellar Beneath the Terrace

Tom Sandqvist’s series of photographic collages explores the intertwined themes of language, the body, identity, alienation, and belonging. Many of the works have a pronounced autobiographical tenor. Their striking frames – several centimeters deep – create the illusion of peering through a peephole into the past.

The series is perhaps best described – if not fully understood – through comparison with Sandqvist’s literary output, which provides its conceptual foundation. His written works include the essay Det våta språket (The Wet Language, 2023), the novel Döden, döden i Fließendorf (Death, Death in Fließendorf, 2024), and the collage novel Under terrassen hade jag en fuktig källare (There was a Damp Cellar Beneath the Terrace, 2026). Together, his creations form a cohesive artistic corpus in which image and text mirror one another, each deepening the other’s meaning.

Sandqvist’s recent photographic works mark a return to the field of visual art, a practice he set aside during his university studies in the early 1970s. Rather than pursuing a singular visual style, his current oeuvre is concerned with finding a visual counterpart to his literary production, which spans the entirety of his adult life. At the same time, the series maintains a clear connection to his earlier collage-based works.

Tom Sandqvist (b. 1954) is an internationally renowned art historian and writer, and a former professor of art theory and intellectual history in Stockholm. Alongside his literary career, he has maintained an active engagement with visual art. His first exhibition appearances date back to the 1970s, and he has since held several solo exhibitions in Finland and Sweden, as well as participated in group exhibitions at institutions including the Åland Art Museum, the Ronneby Cultural Centre, and the Eskilstuna Art Museum.