AKTUELL UTSTÄLLNING
Juju Bento
Muted Whispers of a Heart Murmur
24 januari – 1 mars 2026
Vernissage 24 januari kl. 13-16
I soloutställningen Muted Whispers of a Heart Murmur fördjupar sig Juju Bento i den mänskliga skörheten genom att lyssna till hjärtats slag, dess ljud, uppehåll och rytm. Utställningen tar sin utgångspunkt i Auscultation of the Heart, en vinylsamling från 1960-talet framtagen av det amerikanska biofarmaceutiska företaget Merck Sharp & Dohme, där olika hjärtljud dokumenterats för medicinsk undervisning. Detta historiska material ligger till grund för tre rumsliga miljöer, med och utan ljud, som öppnar för ett samtal om sårbarhet.
Med hjälp av skulptur, ljus och ljud omformar Bento de ursprungliga inspelningarna och placerar deras vetenskapliga och pedagogiska funktion i ett konstnärligt sammanhang. Hon riktar blicken mot rytmer som faller ur takt: fel, störningar och avbrott, och hur dessa kroppsliga skeenden upplevs och tolkas i samband med sorg.
Genom att beröra bland annat olika hjärtljud, klaffrelaterade förändringar, blåsljud och arytmier framställs hjärtat både som ett biologiskt organ och som en symbolisk behållare för mänskliga känslor och existens. Utställningen, som anpassas till Krognoshusets karaktär, uppehåller sig vid hjärtats ömtåliga men livsavgörande rörelse. Bento inbjuder besökaren att uppmärksamma och känna igen den sårbarhet som finns i varje rytm.
Juju Bento, född 1999 i Abrantes, Portugal, är en multidisciplinär konstnär verksam i Sverige, Danmark och Portugal. Hon har en masterexamen i fri konst från Malmö Konsthögskola (2022 –2024) och en kandidatexamen i fri konst från Caldas da Rainha (2018–2021), samt en tidigare specialisering i keramik vid António Arroio i Lissabon. Bento har ställt ut på Inter Arts Center i Malmö och Espaço Llansol i Lissabon och har kommande utställningar på bland annat Galleri Box i Göteborg och OSSO Associação i Portugal. Hennes verk har även visats på Skissernas Museum i Lund, CAPC i Coimbra, Portugal, och FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design i Köpenhamn. Juju Bento har mottagit flera stipendier, bland annat från Konstnärsnämnden, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Millennium Bcp och Danish Arts Foundation. Hon har även deltagit i olika residensprogram, däribland MACRO Residency vid OSSO i Portugal, Imagined Site at Kilpisjärvi Biological Research Station in Finland och Studio Program på FABRIKKEN i Danmark.
Mer om konstnären: jujubento.com
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Expanding the subtle act of listening to heartbeats, the solo exhibition Muted Whispers of a Heart Murmur turns its focus to the fragility of human rhythm. Drawing inspiration from a 1960s vinyl collection titled Auscultation of the Heart, recorded by the American biopharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme, the exhibition unfolds across three sound and non-sound ambiences for dialogue with vulnerability.
Engaged with forms of sculpture, light, and sound, Juju Bento recontextualises these records with an educational, scientific approach within her artistic practice. She investigates failures, irregularities, and disruptions of a rhythm and how they are perceived in the context of grief.
Covering topics like different heart sounds, valve lesions, murmurs, and arrhythmias, the heart is presented as both a biological organ and a symbolic vessel of human emotion and existence. This site-sensitive exhibition reflects on the delicacy and necessity of the heart’s movement. The artist invites individuals to perceive fragilities.
Juju Bento, born in 1999 in Abrantes, Portugal, is a multidisciplinary artist working between Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Malmö Art Academy (2022–2024) and a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Caldas da Rainha (2018–2021), with an earlier specialization in ceramics at António Arroio in Lisbon. Bento has exhibited at Inter Arts Center in Malmö and Espaço Llansol in Lisbon, and has upcoming exhibitions at venues such as Galleri Box in Gothenburg and OSSO Associação in Portugal. Her work has also been shown at Skissernas Museum in Lund, CAPC in Coimbra, Portugal, and FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design in Copenhagen, among others. She has received several grants, including from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Fundação Millennium Bcp, and the Danish Arts Foundation. Bento has participated in various residency programs, such as MACRO Residency at OSSO in Portugal, Imagined Site at Kilpisjärvi Biological Research Station in Finland, and the Studio Program at FABRIKKEN in Denmark.
Verktext länk till svensk översättning
On physicians and synesthesia
In Portuguese, at least in a former colony in which the language is still spoken, a physician wanting to examine a patient’s lungs would place the cold stethoscope onto their skin, and ask them to say 33 (trinta e três). It was never clear to me what the pronunciation of this number could reveal, and how. Why 33 and not três tristes tigres (three sad tigers) or travessia transatlântica (transatlantic crossing)? Or why couldn’t each doctor choose their own set of words, short verse or song fragment, maybe even one for each day, even one for each patient? Always 33. As if this was a magic number. As if pronouncing the amount of years that Jesus is said to have walked on Earth could make one live longer. Or as if enunciating the number of revolutions per minute required for an LP to play at the recorded pace would produce a vibration that reveals the health of one’s breathing. I think now doctors only ask patients to take deep breaths, one after another, until they are satisfied. Or maybe they just prescribe scans: do not move, hold your breath, count the seconds in silence, refrain from pronouncing any number.
Medicine has become primarily visual. And medical development became about finding ways to view better: microscopes that allow us to see the invisible parts our bodies are made of, machines that can unveil our bones behind the flesh, stains that dye cells to visually differentiate their kinds and their parts, lasers that count cells according to their sizes and behaviour, magnetic fields and radio waves that misalign hydrogen particles generating detailed images of organs, muscles, and bones. Seemingly endless resources and hours of research allocated to finding more and more complex ways of compressing living bodies into images. And then charts and tables that compare found with expected results and translate numbers and colours into diseases with a name, a suggested treatment and a possible prognosis.
But medicine can also be about listening. As I remember, examinations came after an interview in which the patient attempted to put words to their symptoms and the physician tried to pose the right questions to unfold the complaints into specific kinds of pain or discomfort and identify the parasite, mitochondrial disorder or DNA mutation that could be causing such distress. A good physician would be trained or skilled to help us talk, so we would give them the words they need. In their offices, with their guidance, we would name body parts and fluids that are rarely named otherwise, telling them secrets we wouldn’t repeat and they wouldn’t reveal: doctor-patient confidentiality. Only then, with a hypothesis in mind, would the doctor ask us to remove our clothes, take certain positions and perform certain tasks: stick out our tongue, take a deep breath, say 33.
And good physicians would be trained and skilled to listen. Listen to our voices and the words they say, to our silences and the insight they carry, but also to other noises made by our bodies and the things they can tell. They would be trained to distinguish between the muffled distorted sound the pronunciation of trinta e três produces when vibrating through healthy lungs and the sharp and clear sound these words would create in lungs tainted by infections or filled with liquid. They would auscultate like instrument tuners: the better the sound quality, the worse the organ’s condition.
One of the most beautiful tools ever invented, the stethoscope – from the Greek stethos (chest) and skopein (to view, not to listen). Apparently created by a tactful male physician who one day rolled a paper into a cone to avoid placing his naked ear on the naked chest of a female patient. A distance at first, that ended up amplifying internal sounds, making them more perceptible. We have one in the house. I bought in a medical store when León was four years old. Not a plastic set with toys looking like a syringe, a hammer, and a stethoscope, so that he could play doctor. But a real one, so that he could listen to people’s hearts. Probably more like a drummer or a dreamer than like a doctor.
For physicians listening is not enough. Apart from hearing distinctively and listening attentively, a physician has to be capable of making sense of identified sounds. They need to be able to compare these to previously heard heartbeats, auscultations of the same patient at an earlier stage, those of other patients with compatible disorders, and studied exemplary cases. Cardiologist and Professor of clinical medicine, Dr. Abe Ravin dedicated his life to learning and teaching this comparison. Originally published in 1958, his book “Auscultation of the Heart” provides a comprehensive guide to listening as a primary diagnostic tool in an era of growing reliance on newer, more expensive methods.
The book has a chapter about the properties of sound, explaining the physics of its propagation; one on graphic recordings, advocating for a routine method for graphically notating auscultatory findings, creating a way to translate sounds into drawings; and one dedicated to detailed explanation and correlation of normal and abnormal heart sounds and murmurs. The publication was updated in 1967 to include new information and supplementary audio materials (on vinyl or cassette tapes). The audio collection consists of multiple sound recordings covering different heart sounds, valve lesions (mitral stenosis, aortic valve lesions), murmurs, and arrhythmias.
Interestingly enough, the sounds recorded were not produced by any human heart. In 1965, Dr. Ravin concluded the invention of the first heart sound simulator, a device developed to assist students in learning to identify and differentiate cardiac and pulmonary sounds. From white noise, the machine filters the four frequency ranges covering those produced by the heart, which are then blended by means of a perforated revolving disk. Patterns made by holes in the disk regulate the rhythm and potency of the sound by permitting varying intensities of light to play on electric cells which control an amplifier. Nothing in common with the mechanism that creates the sounds a heart can make. “In this way we can be sure that the student hears what we want him (sic.) to hear.”, said Dr. Ravin. Ideal dysfunctions, designed anomalies, exemplary aberrations.
Before all this, as an epigraphy, the book begins with a poem by Marjorie Kimmerle that reads:
You must be synesthetic
And really quite poetic
In reading Auscultation of the Heart
You must picture every murmur
Very weak or slightly firmer
And listen to the beauties of a chart
Maybe there shouldn’t be such sharp distinction between seeing and listening. Maybe it makes sense to call viewing (skopein) the capacity to perceive internal sounds. Maybe Ravin’s graphic notations of murmurs could be the most beautiful drawings of the last century, not for their lines but for their intension. Think of the effort for finding a form, a hand movement recorded on paper, to make visible the repeated and sometimes disrupted sound of a heart. Or maybe the ephemeral drawings made by light passing through circular holes on a rotating disk to produce the right sound to depict a wrong heartbeat. Maybe the most beautiful drawings of the last century are hidden under the skin, in the intermittent lines traced by the electric impulses that stimulate three million hearts to keep their pace. Until, one by one, they stop.
Carla Zaccagnini, December 2025