Born in Nairobi, Swedish-Somali artist Ikram Abdulkadir first came to my attention years ago through a former agent at Bad Land, the creative agency representing her commercial practice. “She’s someone to watch,” were their words. Fast forward to 2026, and that prediction has proven accurate. Abdulkadir is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at Moderna Museet Malmö and recently held her first gallery solo exhibition at Copenhagen’s prominent Nils Stærk.

K.Z: Hi Ikram, where are you at the moment?

I.A: I’m in Malmö, my hometown, catching my breath at the moment. It’s nice to be home after a very busy spring. Most of my work starts here anyway. The people I photograph are here, my family is here, and many of the places that appear in my photographs are places I’ve been returning to for years.

K.Z: Congrats on all your recent success. You are currently featured in a solo show at Moderna Museet Malmö, and your solo show at Nils Stærk in Copenhagen recently ended its run. I am hoping to catch the show in Malmö later in the year, but tell me a little about how the show, curated by Anna Tellgren, came about.

I.A: Thank you! Anna and I first worked together on the exhibition Swedish Acquisitions 2021 at Moderna Museet, but we met for the first time while working on Søsterskap, for which she was one of the curators. I’m always in awe of her immense interest in, care for, and deep knowledge of photography, especially within the arts.

I often feel that photography isn’t always held in the same regard as other artistic practices. Perhaps that’s because of its accessibility, and because there can be a tendency to place greater value on work that is more abstract or difficult to access. I don’t know anyone else in Sweden who champions photography with the same level of respect and seriousness as Anna does.

We spent a lot of time looking through different bodies of work and discussing what connected them, as well as what connected my practice to Deborah Turbeville’s which is running concurrently at the museum. The exhibition became less about a single project and more about the themes I keep returning to: family, memory, love, grief, friendship, and home.

It was also a strange experience to revisit my archive in that way. Many of the photographs are tied to very specific moments in my life. Looking through them felt a little like opening an old family album. There was joy in it, but also a strong sense of time passing.

K.Z: I believe exhibiting with Nils Staerk in Copenhagen marks the first time working with a commercial gallery for you. What has that experience been like?

I.A: It was my first time working with a commercial gallery, so there was a lot that was new to me. I came into photography in a very accidental way and have mostly learned things as I’ve gone along.

What I appreciated most was the trust. I had the pleasure of working with Josefine Juliane Well (ed.’s note: the director of Nils Stærk) on the exhibition, and they were also the person who first approached me with the opportunity. They made me feel at home in the space and made exhibiting commercially for the first time feel like a natural next step in my career.

At the end of the day, I’m still showing work that holds parts of me and feels true to both my practice and myself. The context around the work may change, but the photographs come from the same place.

K.Z: Also, as somebody who is very amused by titles, both of your two recent shows (ed’s note: Soft Focus at Moderna Museet Malmö and We Will Meet Again in Paradise at Moderna Museet Malmö) have had interesting yet very different titles. How did you arrive at them?

I.A: Titles usually come quite late for me in the process. I tend to make the work first and understand it afterwards.

We Will Meet Again in Paradise, the title of my first-ever exhibition, came from an intimate place and memory. Around that time, I was thinking a lot about what it means to be a Black Muslim woman and immigrant, carving out space for yourself despite being pushed to the margins of Swedish society and, at times, being denied basic human dignity.

I was also thinking a lot about belonging, community, love, and the idea of being reunited with the people we lose. But I was also thinking about paradise as something that can exist here and now. Sometimes you’re sitting with people you love and, for a brief moment, everything feels right.

That can feel like its own kind of paradise.

K.Z: You have been a name on the local photography scene for many years now, but it seemed like you had your international breakthrough with Søsterskap at Rencontres d’Arles in 2023 and have been exhibiting actively since. I recall a wonderful show at CFF that paid tribute to your younger brother, Aboowe.

I.A: Arles definitely changed things for me. Suddenly, the work reached people and institutions that otherwise might never have come across it. New conversations started happening.

At the same time, it doesn’t really feel like there was a clear divide between before and after. The things I’m photographing now are the same things I’ve always been photographing. The scale changed more than the motivation.

The work about my brother remains very important to me. Seeing how strongly he reacted, and how sad he was about not being included in the 2023 exhibition I See Home in You at Fotografiska Stockholm, which contained photographs of my sisters, really changed the way I think about what it means when I describe my practice as a labour of love.

It made me reflect more deeply on how the work is received by the people closest to me, and what it means for them to be included in, or excluded from, the stories I tell.

K.Z: Among established artists, not having gone the traditional route of art school is still rare. You are notably self-taught. How did it all get started for you?

I.A: I bought a camera when I was a teenager, and at first I photographed buildings and different environments because it felt easier. I could photograph them from a distance.

Everything changed when I travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, and started photographing family members instead. I realised very quickly that people were what interested me.

I’ve always loved family albums. Growing up, I spent a lot of time looking through photographs at home. I think photography became an extension of that. I wanted to preserve people and moments that mattered to me.

I never really planned on becoming an artist. I studied other things and imagined a completely different future for myself. Photography was simply the thing I kept returning to.

I’m a very nostalgic person, and sometimes I feel like I’m grieving a moment before it’s even over. A photograph can’t stop time, but it can help you hold on to something for a little longer. I think a lot of my work is driven by that feeling. 

K.Z: What I, and many others, I’m sure, appreciate is that you depict themes that in themselves might not be novel, family and community, for instance, but rather the people you depict. In a Swedish art context, it is still rare to see Black people, let alone women wearing hijabs.

I.A: I think that’s true. The themes themselves are very ordinary: family, friendship, love, grief, and belonging. Most people have some relationship to those experiences.

The people in my photographs are often my sisters, friends, and community simply because those are the people closest to me. They’re the people I know and love.

I don’t usually begin with representation as a goal. I begin with affection. I photograph the people around me because they matter to me.

At the same time, I understand that when certain people have historically been absent from museums, galleries, and photographic history, their presence carries a different meaning.

A lot of the political readings of my work happen after the photographs leave me. They emerge in the encounter between the image and the viewer. The work itself usually begins somewhere much more personal.

K.Z: With a busy spring behind you, how will you be spending the summer?

I.A: Hopefully a little more slowly.

I want to spend time with family and friends, read, travel if I get the chance, and be near the ocean. Some of my favourite photographs have happened when I wasn’t trying to make work at all. I was simply spending time with people I care about.

So hopefully there’ll be a bit of that too.

Koshik Zaman is a freelance writer and independent curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. He has been a contributing editor to Daily Lazy since 2026.

All images courtesy of the artist.

Ikram Abdulkadir’s solo exhibition Soft Focus, curated by Anna Tellgren, runs until September 27, 2026, at Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden.