Liberation

Exhibition at Vänermuseet. A story about freedom, love, and those who try to prevent it—perhaps out of fear of it. Liberation is a unique exhibition: it tells of a gender transition that was destroyed in 1983, and of one forty years later that shows how much further we have come together. Human rights—the right to choose who you are and how you want to live—have expanded. The ability to challenge and go beyond the gender prisons that hold us has grown. But resistance certainly exists. So does hatred. Above all, though, there are people fighting to expand freedom, people who want to free us from our own fears.

Liberation is about two gender transitions, both in the spotlight, in the public eye for everyone to see. Johan Jenny Ehrenberg tells the story of a journey that many have made, but rarely documented so extensively, honestly and personally. 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. Together, they tell a story not only about transitioning, about going from being a man to a trans woman. At its heart, the story is about something even greater: being a gender breaker.

The exhibition is at Vänermuseet from 12/9 to 15/11 2026.