Yuliya Antonova, Body Framed, 2023, film still. Courtesy the artist. Image: Camilla Topuntoli
What does it feel like to walk through life as a woman - what changes, challenges, joys, and pains shape that experience? At the core of this question lies a fundamental truth about identity: Bodies change. They are formed as the world impacts them and through our choices whilst inhabiting them. Through intimate portrait interviews with women based in the Swedish city of Göteborg, hailing from various walks of life, backgrounds, professions, interests, and experiences, Body Framed, a film essay by the artist Yuliya Antonova, explores the relationship women have to their bodies. The sensitive accounts of the lived bodily experience of the women interviewed cover everything from the social pressures of beauty standards and social media to how an individual's perception of themselves alters between borders to the bodily experience of motherhood - from conception to postnatal nurture and struggle.
Body Framed at Kunsthall Trondheim represents Yuliya Antonova’s first institutional exhibition and a departure from the artist's traditional cinema-based practice. Body Framed offers audiences time and agency in how they spend time with these women and their stories.
Yuliya Antonova is a film director of Chuvash and Tatar origin living and working in Umeå, Sweden. She creates documentary and fiction films, merging diverse cinematic influences into a unique directorial approach.
Curated by Joe Rowley.
Body Framed is one of three rotating mini-exhibitions complementing Liv Bugge's solo show Umbilical Fire. All four exhibitions are created by and presented at Kunsthall Trondheim in the context of the Hannah Ryggen Triennale 2025. The 2025 edition of the Triennale collectively explores the theme of "mater" (Latin for mother and root of words like "matter" and "material") across Trondheim art institutions, connecting concepts of motherhood and custody to the production of cultural heritage and materiality itself. Initiated by Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, the collaborative Triennale program includes dedicated presentations at Dropsfabrikken, Kjøpmannsgata Ung Kunst (K-U-K), Trondheim kunstmuseum, Trøndelag senter for samtidskunst, and Ørland/Bjugn Kunstforening as well as at Kunsthall Trondheim.