MIA SALSJÖ

Mia Salsjö

Lives and works Naarm/Melbourne

Mia Salsjö is a Swedish Albanian Australian artist. She grew up in Melbourne in an extended family that included her maternal grandfather, a high ranking government official and dissident refugee who opposed the repressive measures of Albania’s Enva Hoxa regime, Irena, her ballerina mother and father Peter, a Swedish rock musician and successful fashion designer. Under the guidance of her paternal grandfather, orchestra conductor Stig Salsjö, she learnt to read music from a young age, later graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in music improvisation. Her subsequent degree in visual art led Salsjö to arranging numeric systems, visual art and music into complex multi-disciplinary works and performances. Mia is also a graduate of the internationally accredited Kundalini Research Institute; alongside her ongoing art practice she teaches Kundalini Yoga as Joti Tajgeet Kaur. She currently lives in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick with her partner, writer and curator Damian Smith and Pixie their much-loved Miniature Pincher. 

Salsjö’s projects, grounded in complex code-based systems, encompass drawing, music composition, text, performance, video, and textile-based works. Her works have been included in major international exhibitions including Construction of the Possible, the 13th Havanna Biennial, Havana (2019). Other recent exhibitions include The Bridge: A Score for Sydney Harbour Bridge, (2023) Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney and A Score for Fed Square (2022), commissioned by Fed Square and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, performed by musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Carlo Antonioli. Other works include 1000 Year Plan for Gertrude Glasshouse, Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne (2022); Modes and Forms (performance), La Trobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, Victoria (2020); The Score, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Melbourne (2017); and Mia Salsjö: Prints, Drawings, Multiples, Australasian Cultural Art Exchange Gallery, Melbourne (2019). In 2021, she was awarded a City of Melbourne Grant to compose The Quietude (2021), which was performed live in Bunjil Place, Narre Warren, Victoria. Salsjö holds a Master of Fine Art (First Class) from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, and is currently a resident artist at Hayden’s, Melbourne.

Email enquiries to salsjomiacera@gmail.com