Photo: Jacob Friis Holm Nielsen

Centuries of Dreams
2026

Skive Kunstmuseum
21. February – 30. August 2026

In the exhibition "Centuries of Dreams", visual artist Signe Klejs has created a large, site-specific installation especially for Skive Art Museum and the city’s 700-year anniversary.

In the exhibition space, an extensive sand painting winds its way through the room in three layers. A portrait of Skive and the surrounding landscape – with three points in time: first the Middle Ages, the year 1900, and 2026 – from Skive’s history as a market town.

The work is created from approximately 400 kg of coloured sand, shaped into images and landscapes, and accompanied by a soundscape consisting of the thoughts and dreams of the citizens of Skive about their city. In this way, the exhibition becomes both a historical and contemporary portrait of Skive – seen through both the artist’s and the citizens’ perspectives.

A central aspect of the work is its mutability. Over the course of two weeks, Klejs worked in the exhibition space, allowing the audience a rare insight into the artistic process and the gradual development and transformation of the work.

“Signe Klejs’ work is in itself an image of the city’s living history and development. It is fragile, beautiful, and constantly changing – just like both history and the dreams we attach to a place. The audience is invited to come close to both the material and the process. The stories of the citizens of Skive also play a central role in the work,” says Laila Lund Altinbas.

The sand painting will, in the final third of the exhibition period, be accompanied by the thoughts and dreams of the citizens of Skive about their city as a soundscape for the exhibition. From 21 February to 6 April, visitors to the museum were able to record their thoughts, dreams, memories, and reflections about Skive at the museum. These recordings then become part of the artwork.

Towards the end of the exhibition, the vibrations from the many audio recordings will slowly cause the sand to shift, erasing and transforming the motif.

“In this way, space is created to imagine a Skive that we do not yet know,” says Signe Klejs.

Mutability and entropy are recurring themes in Klejs’ practice. The work offers a concrete image of the passage of time and nature’s movement from order to chaos – and of the existential condition that nothing stands still.

Sand can form patterns, images, and landscapes, but it is constantly changing, crumbling, and slipping through the fingers. The material is a direct expression of the principle of change.

A big thanks to Skive Kunstmuseum for a brilliant colaboration and to my assistents Caroline Bang and Pia Piilgaard.

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Photo: Jacob Friis Holm Nielsen

Photo: Jacob Friis Holm Nielsen