Silvana Imam & Paula Strunden Making of Rebirth
IMMERSIVE LISTENING SESSION AND ARTIST TALK
Get exclusive insight into Silvana Imam and Paula Strunden’s artistic universe, practice and collaboration. They will specifically talk about the artistic concept behind “Återfödelsen / Rebirth” – an Extended Reality (XR) work which is a result of the EU-funded research project (XTREME), commissioned by MUNCH and presented as a work in progress earlier this year.
The two artists describe their work as an «espresso shot of life», structured in three Acts: Birth, Love and Death. The evening is a conversation and a listening session rather than a presentation of the XR work itself: an invitation into the making of an immersive piece, through its sound, its images and the thinking behind it.
They will share perspectives and reflections on making a multimedia work, which combines virtual world-building, interactive sound, and physical and sensory elements. You will be invited to listen to the sound universe, which was created in collaboration with Marijn Cinjee (4DSOUND) and Nisj for XTREME.
Silvana Imam will also share new music especially written for “Återfödelsen / Rebirth” which will be presented at MUNCH for the first time this evening.
Still from the immersive experience «Återfödelsen / Rebirth» (2026) by Silvana Imam and Paula Strunden.
Silvana Imam
Silvana Imam is an interdisciplinary artist, working across the genres of hip-hop, music, theater, and film. Since her debut in 2013, she has established herself as one of the Nordic countries' most influential creators with her uncompromising social-critical lyrics with political explosiveness.
She received the Swedish Grammy's "Musician of the Year" in 2016 for the album Naturkraft (2016), which today stands as a milestone in Swedish hip-hop. She received the "Guldbaggen" for her documentary Silvana – Väck mig när ni vaknat (2017) and has been praised for her leading role in Dogborn (2022). In 2023, she had a critically acclaimed theater debut as Hamlet at the Stadsteatern in Stockholm.
Paula Strunden
Paula Strunden is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher working at the intersection of material bodies, physical objects, and virtual spaces. Through performative, multisensory extended reality (XR) models, she reframes virtuality not as an escape from the physical, but as a deep entanglement with our own body.
Trained as an architect (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais, and The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), her design-led PhD recovers the female pioneers of 1990s virtual technologies and applies their concept of embodied virtuality to XR. She continues this research as founder of xr-atlas.org and Postdoctoral Fellow at Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich. Her immersive installations have been exhibited at film festivals and museums internationally, from the Royal Academy of Arts London to Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, and have twice been nominated for the Dutch Film Award Gouden Kalf.
Marijn Cinjee (4DSOUND)
Marijn Cinjee is a composer, sound artist, designer and researcher working at the intersection of sound, space and perception. He explores interactive and immersive sound and the ways in which spatial sound can influence human perception. He is particularly interested in manipulating perceptions of time, scale, distance and movement, and in the physical and emotional human reactions that occur when sound moves through space.
Cinjee’s work has been presented in venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ and the Koninklijk Theater Carré.
4DSOUND focuses on spatial sound as a creative medium. Through the development of tailor-made technology and close collaboration with innovative artists.
Awo Abdulqadir
Awo will faciliate the conversation between the artists. She is the Head of the UNG program at MUNCH. Since 2021, she has worked with community engagement and the development of spaces for young people at the museum.
As part of the development of «Återfödelsen/Rebirth» (XTREME) she contributed her expertise in community engagement and led MUNCH’s Youth Collective, which provided input and perspectives to the project.
Awo holds a Bachelor's degree in Art Direction from Solent University in Southampton, as well as a degree in Advertising and Brand Communication from Kristiania University College in Norway. With more than ten years of experience in youth audience development, culture, and design, she is passionate about fostering greater inclusion, representation, and participation in cultural institutions.
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Read more about the EU-funded research project (XTREME) here.
