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'Mapping Empty Spaces' Puts a Contemporary Touch on the Immigrant Story

  ANDERSONVILLE — Swedish artist Peter Hammar is coming to Andersonville this week to unveil a new Swedish American Museum exhibition, "Mapping Empty Spaces."
"Mapping Empty Spaces."
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ANDERSONVILLE — Swedish artist Peter Hammar is coming to Andersonville this week to unveil a new Swedish American Museum exhibition, "Mapping Empty Spaces."

"Mapping Empty Spaces" debuts Friday at 6 p.m. at the museum, 5211 N. Clark St. Hammar is scheduled to attend the opening reception. He describes his exhibition as “a contemporary take on the immigrant story.”

The mixed-media production includes enlarged and distorted passport photographs, sculptures made with found materials and an a video projection.

Hammar said “Mapping Empty Spaces” deals with “the loss, gain, selective memory, past and present and blurred identity that most people encounters, that move from one place to another for an extensive period of time.”

The exhibition aims for universal appeal outside the scope of Swedish immigration, and relates the feelings of “anybody who has moved and lived in many places,” and wrestled with ideas of identity and belonging, Hammar said.

The artist, 46, was born and raised in Stockholm and has a background in advertising and graphic design in addition to painting.

Hammar, who has lived in Miami for the last decade, is also the artist behind the museum’s permanent archival exhibit, “A Dream of America — Swedish Immigration to Chicago.”