Skin to Skin: Sandra Mujinga on Her Most Ambitious Work Yet

Before the opening of her exhibition Skin to Skin at the Stedelijk, Something Curated sat down with Sandra Mujinga to talk about her most ambitious project so far. Born in Goma, and now based in Oslo, Mujinga has emerged as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary art. Her interdisciplinary practice spans sculpture, installation, and performance, often drawing from science fiction and digital culture to imagine alternative realities. In her show, fifty-five monumental figures take over the museum’s basement, accompanied by shifting light and sound. The result is an immersive environment that feels both protective and uncanny, opening a conversation on visibility and community.

Nicolas Vamvouklis: What does the exhibition title mean for you?

Sandra Mujinga: I was thinking about different levels of intimacy. On one hand, there’s the physical sense of touch, skin to skin, that closeness and connection. But I was also interested in the brutality of jumping from one skin to another, through cloning or digital duplication. Online, we exist in multiple versions of ourselves, which I think of as a kind of formal skin. Sci-fi ideas of cloning also inspired me. So the title moves between intimacy and multiplicity. Skins being repeated in this space.

NV: Could you guide me through the show?

SM: When you enter, you first see these elongated figures. At a glance you can’t quite read them, until you move around and realize they’re standing in profile. I was inspired by herds of animals, or people in airports staring at screens. Facing something, waiting for something, maybe knowing more than we do. Walking further, you notice the figures have tentacle-like forms, reminiscent of elephant trunks.

They stand with long limbs among mirrored portals, seven in total, each the same size as the figures, suggesting entrances or vessels containing other bodies. Six mirrored pedestals punctuate the space, with three figures elevated on them as if keeping watch. As you move, the figures multiply through reflections, and you’re caught inside this shifting network. Soft green light cycles through the space like a sun, creating the rhythm of sunrise and sunset, almost like walking through a forest. At moments, a soundtrack activates the installation, turning it into an event.

NV: Why do you consider this your most ambitious work to date?

SM: The scale. Until now, I had made groups of four figures. This time there are fifty-five. Four can feel like a group to be looked at. But when they’re the majority, they’re the ones looking at you. That shift in perspective was important.

NV: How does it connect to your broader practice?

SM: I think of this as core Sandra. It brings together what I’ve become known for: elongated figures, immersive light. A curator friend told me it reminded them of my 2018 works with tentacles, octopuses, and deep-sea imagery. Those ideas return here in a new way, now expanded with an architectural dimension, connected to my installation “I Build My Skin With Rocks” at Hamburger Bahnhof. It feels concentrated, like a culmination.

NV: The installation presents 55 identical figures. Who are these creatures?

SM: I think of them as shells. Naming is always complicated for me, because naming has historically been tied to colonial discovery: the violence of imposing labels, like calling a place Lake Victoria. I’m drawn to their features—tentacles, elephantine limbs—but I resist fixing them through names.

NV: Why is repetition important here?

SM: The figures all come from a single body, cloned 55 times. Instead of competing, the clones form a community. You could see them as one body across different life stages, or as a kinship network. Skin to skin, leaning on each other. With multiplicity comes the loss of self, something I connect to art. Like being at a concert, surrounded by people, dissolving into the crowd. Losing yourself into others.

NV: How about the materials?

SM: They’re mainly wool textiles, double-woven, heavy and textured, rocky yet soft. I started with one tentacle, sculpting from fabric like clay. That’s something I love: making parts, and then assembling them into a whole. It’s a way of giving myself freedom. I sew them, with assistants helping in the studio. Cutting the fabric took the most time. I also make clothes, though mostly just for myself, at least for now.

NV: How does the exhibition relate to digital spaces or online presence?

SM: That’s where cloning comes in. I was reading Naomi Klein’s “Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World,” where she reflects on being confused with Naomi Wolf, who holds completely different political views. People would attribute outrageous statements to Klein, thinking they were hers. That fascinated me: someone unlike you taking over your identity in the digital sphere.

It also reminded me of Jordan Peele’s film “Us.” My irrational fear that a double could replace me, and no one would notice. With deep fakes and AI, this isn’t just fantasy. We’re already being digitally cloned. Klein describes these doubles as our shadows. AI too is like a shadow: it mirrors us, feeding on our consciousness and knowledge.

NV: With such visibility on social media, have you ever felt unseen at the same time?

SM: Yes, absolutely. I think invisibility will become the new luxury. Fifteen minutes of invisibility. That’s what people will crave. Erasing yourself from the internet will be the ultimate resource.

NV: How do you approach questions of Black visibility in your practice?

SM: My experience as a Black woman is part of my work. I’ve been reading Fred Moten, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson. Writers who think deeply about humanness, care rights, and visibility. These concerns connect to technology too, especially surveillance systems that misrecognize Black skin. There’s always that harmful cliché: “Black people look alike.” Visibility, recognition, and their failures are central to my practice.

NV: What does care mean to you?

SM: I think of care as both a practice and a messy process. We’ve professionalized it so much: healing in isolation, then rejoining community only when we’re “ready.” But healing happens with others. That’s why I think Audre Lorde is often misunderstood: self-care wasn’t about pampering but about political survival. Care is active, repetitive, communal. You’re accepted as you are, and that’s when real healing begins.

NV: Beyond visual art, you’re also a musician and DJ. How do these fields feed into each other?

SM: For me, it’s always been enriching. Different audiences, different languages. With music, people respond directly: “That melody is beautiful.” With art, they often doubt themselves: “Do I understand this?” Music is immediate, almost instinctive. Children respond to it without explanation. Visual art took me longer to access. Growing up, I thought public sculptures were natural formations, not human-made.

Both fields teach me freedom. In art school in Malmö, I gave myself a rule: do everything I was afraid of. I’m interested in failure, in embarrassment, in humiliation rituals. Performance lets you encounter those fears head-on.

NV: If your figures could suddenly move, what music would they dance to?

SM: I’d want them to walk very slowly. Recently I found this beautiful song, “Satellites” by Ravyn Lenae, a collaboration with Steve Lacy. It has this choir-like resonance and pace. It would be perfect.

NV: If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?

SM: In high school I had high grades, so everyone told me I could be anything, yet I chose art. I was involved in politics, the student union. I thought about fashion design, since my mother was a designer and taught me to sew. I even applied to architecture school but wasn’t accepted.

I think I’d teach. Teaching feels powerful, like Ocean Vuong says: “I could stop writing books, but I’ll never stop teaching.” Sharing ideas reminds me why I started making art. I once did a public project in a school just to meet the students. Because that’s how the work lives on, through conversations.

Today we live in an age of instant answers: ChatGPT instead of a librarian, Google Maps instead of asking directions. I still believe in sharing knowledge directly. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s the act of sharing that matters.

NV: Let’s close with a wish.

SM: Less disconnect. That we remember we share the same planet, and that what happens elsewhere is never someone else’s problem. A bigger awareness that everything is connected.

Sandra Mujinga: Skin to Skin is on view at the Stedelijk, Amsterdam until January 11, 2026.



Feature image: Installation view Sandra Mujinga – Skin to Skin, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2025. Photo: Peter Tijhuis