Morphology of Errors – Malin Franzén

Published: 18 September, 2020
Morphology of Errors – Malin Franzén

Malin Franzén

Oct 3 – Nov 15 2020

The exhibition Morphology of Errors is based on a multi-year work in which artist Malin Franzén has researched knowledge-seeking processes in areas such as botany, book printing and nature conservation, and the representations of these results. The newly produced artworks zoom in on the errors that occur, as they offer a larger image and maintain the tension in the search for answers. Digital glitches, mutated plants, broken nature prints and removed plant material are some of the errors collected. Here the artist examines their own inherent qualities and logic, their form and relationships.

Since 2018, Malin Franzén has returned to Art Lab Gnesta, and traveled to Goa, India as part of our project Swamp Storytelling for a collaboration with the Indian research group Earth CoLab. The work has followed both conventionally scientific and more alternative methods from, among others, Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, plant morphologist and philosopher Agnes Arber, anthroposophy and the Nature Conservation Association Daga-Gnesta.

The diversity of connections, impulses and expressions that the project has given rise to is now exhibited in the largest presentation of Malin Franzén’s work to date. In the exhibition rooms filled with woodcuts, freshly cooked plant ink, hand bound books, video works and sculptural elements, we glimpse at an underlying interest in the limits of knowledge, and at the same time its impotence – which in turn opens up a wonder of the mysterious and elusive.

Exhibition text (pdf)

14/11 – Ditches, floodgates and squares. Welcome to a day of conversations and research based on the exhibition Errors of Morphology by Malin Franzén. Read more


Thanks to Adam Adobati och Hans Rydberg (Naturskyddsföreningen Daga-Gnesta), Savita Avicienna, Adrian Roche och Danika Tavora (Earth CoLab), Rod och Chris Mulvey (Huntingdon Rd 52), Henrik Jönsson (Sainsbury Laboratory), Colin T. Clarkson (Cambridge University Library), Rosalind Grooms (Cambridge University Press Archive), Anne Thomson (Newnham College Archive), Anna Lantz (Hagströmerbiblioteket), Artur Granstedt (Biodynamiska forskningsinstitutet), Lars Kjellenberg (Örjanskolan Ytterjärna), Philip Gerlee (Chalmers Tekniska Högskola), Axel Andersson (Författare), Ina Marie Winther Åshaug och Grim Dellsén (Göteborgs Universitet Team Digitalisering), Ann-Charlotte Enocksson (KKV-b stora grafiken), Marco di Bella (Associazione Culturale Mali Caratteri), Maura C Flannery (Professor Emeritus, St. John’s University, New York).


The production is made possible with the support of  Konstnärsnämnden Iaspis, The Swedish institute Create in Residence and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse.