When art meets arttalk
What happens when a work of art becomes the starting point for something new?
Ali Smith and Jenny Hval have both engaged with Edvard Munch’s art – from different perspectives and using different methods. Smith has used Munch’s images as a gateway to new literary forms, including in her essay So in to the Spruce Forest, written for the exhibition Trembling Earth. As moderator, Hval brings her own experience of working with Munch’s visual world across media, through compositions such as The Glowing Room (2021) and Join the Sound (2024).
In this conversation, the two come together to explore what happens when artistic practices intersect – when one artist’s expression becomes material, inspiration or resistance for another. Together, Smith and Hval will discuss what happens when art meets art: impulses, borrowed perspectives, friction, translations between forms of expression, and how an existing work can serve as a starting point rather than a framework.
A conversation about process, artistic practice, and how a voice from the past can spark something entirely new in the present.
Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.
Jenny Hval (b. 1980) is an Oslo-based recording artist and writer often working with interdisciplinary projects bridging the fields of pop music, performing arts and literature. She has released nine solo albums since 2006 and published both fiction and non-fiction books. In 2025 she released her latest album, Iris Silver Mist, in tow with her first book of non-fiction, Scenemennesket.
After the talk, Ali Smith will be signing books. Books can be purchased from the museum shop before the event.
