Illustrated Stories on Display: How Exhibitions Speak

This seminar series explores exhibitions as rhetorical arenas where images and illustrations tell stories. Scholars and curators show how visual narratives persuade, move, and invite audiences into dialogue.

How did it start? I asked – Like this, you replied

The exhibition “Hur började det? frågade jag – Såhär, svarade du” at Halmstads Konsthall (26.10.2024 – 9.2.2025) showcased the imaginative worlds of Magdalena Cavallin. Collages, drawings, and paintings based on three children’s books were integrated with her traditional artwork. This event enabled Cavallin to reflect on what illustration means beyond the page. What happens when a story is translated into space, when the illustrations become an environment you can literally walk into? Children and adults alike were invited to explore these questions – discovering that illustration is just not a decoration but a form of storytelling alive with its own rhythms and possibilities.

Magdalena Cavallin is a Swedish children’s book illustrator and visual artist whose practice spans collage, drawing, and painting. She has collaborated with poet Naima Chahboun on Ingenting och ALLT (Nothing and Everything, 2021), with Mikael Cavallin on Gå inte fel Kamel (Don’t Get Lost, Camel 2010), and with playwright Malin Axelsson on Mitt liv som detektiv (My Life as Detective, 2010). In her work, storytelling and visual exploration intertwine, resulting in richly detailed worlds where motifs and characters return like echoes. Her illustrations invite both children and adults into dreamlike, architecturally inspired landscapes – spaces where imagination reshapes reality and stories unfold beyond the pages.