PRESENTATION: Sandra Mujinga-Skin to Skin
The Norwegian artist Sandra Mujinga maintains a multidisciplinary practice driven by a profound interest in the body, skin, and its visibility and invisibility. In her installations, which are as much sculptural as sound- and light-based, ghostly figures and fantastical hybrid creatures function as prisms through which to pursue her investigations. Taking inspiration from animal survival strategies such as camouflage and nocturnality, science fiction’s concept of world- building, posthumanism, and Afrofuturism, Mujinga proposes a futuristic world where cyborg existence and duplication do not necessarily signal.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Belvedere 21 Archive
“Skin to Skin” is Sandra Mujinga’s first museum presentation in Austria. The Norwegian-Congolese artist is occupying Belvedere 21’s central exhibition space with an expansive installation that comprises sculptures, sounds, and reflections. Here, repetition becomes an artistic strategy for plumbing the depths of (in)visibility, community, and transformation.
At the center of “Skin to Skin” is a group of 55 identical larger-than-life figures. Swathed in heavy fabrics, they seem like creatures from another time—at once archaic and futuristic. Mirrored elements in the space multiply their presence, while a specially composed electronic soundtrack acoustically supplements the sculptural staging. Sandra Mujinga’s installation occupies the exhibition space of Belvedere 21 and invites visitors to immerse themselves in these different visual and auditory levels.
From avatars to clones and ghostly apparitions to unknown species, Mujinga’s hybrid figures invite a variety of associations. The artist develops speculative worlds where spatial and temporal layers overlap. In her newly produced work, she takes up themes from science fiction, Afrofuturism, and posthumanism, which she combines with reflections on animal survival strategies, such as camouflage and nocturnal activity, as well as an interest in bodies and identity. Repetition and camouflage function in the exhibition as means of self-empowerment and protection against external control and the imposition of stereotypes.
Inspired by Naomi Klein’s concept of the doppelgänger* in her eponymous book, “Skin to Skin” refers to the possibility of evading explicit legibility through multiplication. The installation thus deals with hypervisibility and surveillance—especially with regard to Black bodies—in physical and digital space. Exposed to viewers’ gazes from the museum’s first floor above, the faceless beings and the connection between them open up a new perspective on collective existence and mutability.
Sandra Mujinga counters the logic of neoliberal individualization with her artistic approach to recent and future concepts for social coexistence. Her figures, for example, can be seen as a community, a group, a family, or another form of coexistence. “Skin to Skin” invites visitors to engage in an in-depth examination of perception, visibility, and social transformation, opening up a space for experience that invites them to linger and imagine.
*Naomi Klein’s concept of the “doppelgänger” is a metaphorical and personal exploration of the “Mirror World”—a distorted, parallel reality fueled by social media, conspiracy theories, and political polarization, often exemplified by her frequent confusion with Naomi Wolf. It signifies a distorted shadow self that represents our worst fears, repressed political anxieties, and the breakdown of shared reality
Photo: Sandra Mujinga, Spectral Keepers, 2020 , Installation view, The Approach, London, 2021, Photo: Plastiques, Courtesy Sandra Mujinga and The Approach, London © Sandra Mujinga
Info: Curators: Axel Köhne, Melanie Bühler and Vincent van Velsen, Assistant Curator: Carla Wiggering, Belvedere 21, Arsenalstraße 1, Vienna, Austria, Duration: 28/1-31/5/2026, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.belvedere.at/en
