SLOW DOWN
(2025)
Hadi Qasemi
Description
Slow Down! explores how meaning shifts with perspective. Through layered compositions where forms overlap, dissolve, and reappear, Hadi Qasemi invites viewers to slow down, engage actively, and uncover multiple stories within a single image. A poetic devotion to attention and presence, resonating with the ethos of Slow Art and Minimalism. What first appears certain, transforms as you move and look again, a reminder that life, identity, and experience are never fixed. In line with HAS’ mission to foster curiosity, dialogue, and connections across worlds, this exhibition encourages reflection, challenges assumptions, and celebrates the multiplicity of perspectives that shape how we see art and ourselves.
Artist Statement
“Slow Down comes from lived experience, from moving through different cultures, borders, and expectations, and learning that nothing in life has a single meaning. Identity, truth, belonging, these are never fixed. They shift depending on who is looking, from where, and when.
In a world that demands simple answers and fast labels, I choose complexity. I build images where forms merge and stories overlap, where one vision contains another. What you see first is never the whole. What feels certain changes with your angle. This is how I have learned to see people, places, and myself.
My work asks for presence and patience. It does not offer one conclusion. Instead, it invites you to question certainty, to look again, and to recognise that every life, every moment, holds more than one story.”
Date
Artists
Hadi Qasemi
About
Hadi Qasemi grew up in Stockholm and developed his artistic practice from an early age. His work is grounded in lived experience, navigating cultural layers and shifting identities. He creates to express what cannot be said in words, producing images where forms and figures coexist, revealing multiple presences within a single composition. SLOW DOWN! challenges the notion of a single truth. It celebrates multiplicity, encouraging viewers to engage, reflect, and embrace complexity.
Credits
Stockholm, Anna-Therese Klingberg, HRH Princess Sofia, Tannaz Horri Farahani, Tord Magnuson, Daniel Adams Ray, Ida Kriisa, Värmeverket, Gihan V. Mauris, Daniel Daboczy, Birgit Berglund, Project Playground, Human Rights Watch Sweden, Sverige för UNHCR. Jennifer Gummesson, Ebba Lindgren Jirdén and Thom Mattson.


