Yuliya Antonova, Body Framed, 2023, film still. Courtesy Yuiya Antonova. 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.
Yuliya Antonova’s Body Framed is a collection of intimate portrait interviews with women living in the Swedish city of Göteborg, hailing from various walks of life, backgrounds, professions, interests, and experiences. This delicately shot film essay explores the relationships these women have to their bodies. The sensitive accounts of the lived bodily experience of womanhood cover everything from the social pressures of beauty standards and social media, to how an individual’s perceptions of themself alters between national borders. Notably the impact of time is discussed, both through the frame of learning to be in a body as it changes and grows and through the experience of motherhood and the physical and emotional strain that places on a person and the way it helps to reconfigure time. With political agendas and real conditions globally once again becoming more conservative and less safe whilst pressures on women to conform and perform, have children and meet the unattainable expectations propagated by media all at the same time, Body Framed is a timely reminder to listen, respect and understand; to be empowered and be who and how you want to be.
Yuliya Antonova is a film director of Chuvash and Tatar origin. She creates documentary and fiction films, merging diverse cinematic influences into a unique directorial approach. Body Framed at Kunsthall Trondheim represents Antonova’s first institutional exhibition and a departure from the artist's traditional cinema-based practice. We invite you to make yourself comfortable and to spend time with these women and their stories.
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.
Body Framed is curated by Joe Rowley.
Technical team: Cas van Son, Marc Pricop
Translation: Dina Al-Makhrami
Communication: Eirik Haldberg
With thanks to Adam Kleinman, Ula Jern, Dag Olav Kolltveit, Amalia Fonfara, Tendai Angela Jambga-Rokkone, Mickis Gullstrand and with support from Bergesenstiftelsen, Fritt Ord & Sparebank SMN1.
Body Framed was written and directed by Yuliya Antonova.
Producer - Marielle Mvuanda Riström
DOP (Director of Photography) - Camilla Topuntoli
Photography - Felicia Westerlund
Editing - Yuliya Antonova & Camilla Liljestrand
Colourist - Camilla Liljestrand
Composer - Maria Teriaeva
Sound - Niki Yrla
Body Framed was produced by Mvuanda Filmproduktion & Moineau Productions, in collaboration with Film Västernorrland & Anders Justin. With support from Film i Västerbotten, Lill Casslind, Göteborgs Stad and Stiftelsen Greta.