Application period: 27 February – 15 April 2026

We are excited to accept applications for this year’s UPNEXT, our annual initiative to platform young Afro-Nordic artists at Southnord. This is an opportunity for those between 18 and 28 years old to have a solo exhibition at the gallery.

Application period: 5 February – 22 March 2026

We are thrilled to announce the second open call for our residency programme with LuCAC in Lusaka, Zambia. This is a unique opportunity for Black artists in the Nordics to spend time with their practice in a contemporary African art context.

Southnord is proud to announce Viola Nimuhamya as the winner of the UP NEXT 2025 Open Call. Viola is a Ugandan-born artist based in Bergen, Norway, who recently completed her Master of Fine Art at the University of Bergen.

We are thrilled to announce the winner of our first Southnord Residency Open Call: Max Diallo Jakobsen. As a researcher, Max specializes in modern and contemporary African art, cultural and political history, with a particular emphasis on the independence eras of the 1960s and 70s.

Southnord's inaugural collection exhibition, Mindscape, presents a selection of works from the ever-growing art collection that Southnord is investing in. During the exhibition period, Southnord invited creatives from across the Nordic region to enter into dialogue with the artworks and to activate the space.

We are proud to present this year’s winner of the Southnord UP NEXT open call: Lidiya Solomon. The central themes in her paintings include the feeling of displacement, the search for identity, challenging stereotypes related to sexual identity, and diaspora expectations.

Southnord’s Visual Poetry offering during the artfest at Kulturhuset on 27 October was curated in collaboration with The Poetic Phonotheque. We invited visual poets of African descent in the Nordic region to submit their poetic contributions in the form of animations, experimental short films, video collages, etc.

We are proud to present this year's winner of the Southnord UP NEXT Open Call: Alexandra das Neves Lehmann! UP NEXT is an annual exhibition showcasing young up-and-coming Afro-Nordic artists between the ages of 16-24 years.