Cilia Wagén
Babbling

There is electricity in the air.

Like standing outdoors on a spring evening when the wind moves gently through the trees while light rain lingers in the distance. Thunder rolls somewhere far away and specks of light appear between the somber clouds. Everything feels still, yet something is about to happen.

Three currents of air meet in the room.

Translucent curtains of plastic sheeting sway gently from the ceiling. They shimmer and fold in the moving air like temporary walls, or like weather that has drifted indoors. Across the floor lie fragments of plastic packaging, leaves, feathers and other small pieces of debris. Things that might otherwise gather in gutters, among the high grass with its bugs and wildflowers, and along the old limestone walls following the village streets. Spheres move slowly across the floor, kept in motion by the air currents, turning and rolling as if they were small moons responding to an invisible tide.

Moving continuously in a fragile dance of air and debris.

They gather and disperse in temporary constellations, wobbling and circling as if engaged in a quiet conversation. As if they remember where they have been and continue to carry traces of the lives and landscapes through which they have passed.

In The Global Body, Elvia Wilk reflects on how even the smallest remnants of human life continue to circulate through the world long after they have been discarded. Nothing truly disappears; it simply enters into new relationships with other bodies, materials and forms of life. In Babbling, Cilia Wagén gives these relationships material form. What is usually overlooked or swept aside is activated by air and set into motion. Leaves, feathers, buttons and foil continue their secret lives in the company of the weather.

They are fossils in the making.

Small traces of a sometimes untraceable present that has not yet acknowledged its own imprint. Waiting to be covered by soil, leaves, stones and footsteps. Waiting to be pulverised or preserved. Even in their apparent stillness they continue to exist in secret relationships with weather, animals and people. They dance. They quiver. They babble. They wait.

- Caroline Larikka

Cilia Wagén (b. 1993, Sweden) is an artist living in Stockholm who works with sculpture and installation. She holds an MFA (2025) from the Royal Institute of Art. Previous group exhibitions include Gallery Steinsland Berliner, SKF/Konstnärshuset and Galleri Konstepidemin.

The exhibition is with support from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. Many thanks to Tequila Bar for serving drinks on the opening night.