Slow Goodbyes is a co-creation project and an exhibition by textile artist Subani Melin. 

Based on the experience of having a loved one with dementia, she explores loss, presence and caregiving – and what it means to be close to a person whose reality is gradually changing. 

Being their loved one often means a gradual shift of relationships and roles. The exhibition particularly highlights the little details: repeated daily actions, physical memories, unexpected moments of intimacy. The experiences of family members is the focus, rather than the disease itself.  

The artist developed the thematics and gestalt of the exhibition in collaboration with a group of participants. Personal stories, transformed into collective works through dialogue and co-creation, are the heart of the Fragments of Memories series.  

The starting point was a research project called BLOM, which investigates how popular education through study circles can promote co-creativity between the population and museums, and resulted in several collective works that are featured in the exhibition.  

Slow Goodbyes creates a space for listening and recognition – a place for sharing, bearing and preserving memories, where the often invisible work of caregiving takes on a physical shape.  

Born in Ragama, Sri Lanka in 1983, Subani Melin is a textile artist trained at HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design, who works with co-creative processes. Her artistic practice focuses on meaning-bearing materials, collective actions and the relationship between handicraft and caregiving. In her work, textiles have a language and a method – a pathway into conversation, camaraderie and cognitive processing.