Hugo Mugerwa Klockars is the winner of this year's UP NEXT 2026
Image: Hugo Mugerwa Klockars
We are excited to announce mixed media and textile artist Hugo Mugerwa Klockars as the winner of this year's UPNEXT 2026 Open Call. This is an initiative to spotlight young Afro-Nordic artists between 18 and 28 years old by offering a solo exhibition at the gallery, curatorial support and stipend for their work.
Hugo Mugerwa Klockars (b. 2003, Sweden) uses sewing and photographic materials to create installations that examine tenderness, fragility, impermanence, memory, and how the body responds when encountering something vulnerable or difficult to hold onto. He is interested in what we carry within us: the traces of experiences, emotions, and memories that remain in the body long after a moment has passed. How do we care for something fragile without breaking it? How do we hold grief, change, or memory in our hands?
"Hugo’s work stiches together ancestry, memory and archival material to create moving and contemplative pieces about belonging. Both tactile and conceptual, these works speak to the importance of excavating what we pick up along the way as we go through life. This year's theme routes/roots perfectly aligned with his thoughtful practice and we are proud to be working with him”, says Marcia Harvey Isaksson, founder of Southnord.
For further information and interview requests, please contact:
Rosel Jackson Stern
Communications Manager + Project Coordinator