The Liberation

Exhibition at Vänermuseet. A story about freedom, love, and those who try to hinder it—perhaps out of fear of it. The Liberation is a unique exhibition, telling the story of a gender transition that was destroyed in 1983 and another, forty years later, showing how far we have come together. Human rights—the right to choose who you are and how you want to live—have advanced. The opportunity to challenge and go beyond the gender prisons that confine us has grown. But resistance remains. So does hatred. Above all, however, there are people fighting to expand freedom and to free us from our own fears.

The Liberation is about two gender transitions, both in the spotlight, in public view for all to see. Johan Jenny Ehrenberg tells the story of a journey that many have made, but rarely documented so extensively, with honesty and personal insight. Photographs by Hatte Stiwenius from 1983 are combined with new photographs by Håkan Elofsson from 2023. Conversations, films, old and new interviews, and speeches to the nation come together in a story not only about changing gender, about going from man to trans woman. At its heart, the story is about something even greater: breaking gender boundaries.

The exhibition is on view at Vänermuseet: 12/9–15/11 2026.