This autumn, HEIRLOOM presents two parallel exhibitions, opening MC Coble & Louise Wolthers’ project Things Change Anyway: Trying, Feeling in our own space on Sølvgade, while also curating the group exhibition Young Danish Photography 2024 at Fotografisk Center. These exhibitions are thematically linked through a shared exploration of storytelling as a non-linear temporality.

Things Change Anyway: Trying, Feeling is a collaboration between artist MC Coble and art historian and curator Louise Wolthers, exploring various forms of metamorphoses in life and of the body, relationships and nature. Coble and Wolthers, who are also a couple, created an artist book in 2023 based on their extensive private photo archive, documenting the evolution of their relationship and shared life, and HEIRLOOM has invited the couple to unfurl this material in an exhibition.

The exhibition presents photos, drawings, video and film material, text, found objects and textile works, all intricately woven together into entwined layers of meaning. The installation highlights the complexity of disentangling ongoing processes of change, and how queer relationships, self-chosen family structures and non-human kinships open up new possibilities for connection.

Thematically, the exhibition explores the perpetual movement of transformations. One key focus is Coble’s ongoing gender affirmation as a non-binary trans* person, which involves surgery, difficult encounters with the Swedish healthcare system and various forms of psychological healing and care. Meanwhile, Wolthers faces the hormonal challenges of menopause and the inevitable process of aging. 

Things Change Anyway: Trying, Feeling opens a personal archive and private photo album, offering a visual diary of intimate moments and everyday situations. At the same time, the works also make manifest just how differently society responds to life’s transformative processes, depending on how normative and recognisable they appear.

The publication Things Change Anyway has won several awards, including Art Publication of the Year from AICA – the International Association of Art Critics, as well as Photo Book of the Year 2024 in Sweden.

Louise Wolthers (she/her) has been the research manager and curator at the Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg since 2012. She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Copenhagen and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Gallery of Denmark. Wolthers regularly contributes to books and international journals and curates exhibitions featuring photography, contemporary art and visual culture. Currently, she is working on the multi-year research and exhibition project Bugs & Metamorphosis: Glitching Photography. 

MC Coble (they/them) is an artist based in Gothenburg, working primarily with performance, photography and drawing. In addition to their own practice, which often centres on trans/queer activism, Coble also engages in artistic collaborations, most recently with the group PDA (Public Display of Actions*). Coble has previously worked as senior lecturer at HDK-Valand and as professor at Funen Art Academy.