Model, war correspondent, photographer and surrealist: Lee Miller (1907-1977) is all of these things. As one of the few well-known female photographers from the first half of the 20th century, she made an important contribution to photography.

In the 1930s, Lee Miller was part of the surrealist circles in Paris. In her studio, she took commercial photos for fashion magazines. Sometimes she also stood in front of the lens. As a former model, she knows better than anyone how to pose.

During and after the Second World War, she captured important moments as a photographer and war reporter. Quite remarkable for a woman: this type of work was usually reserved for male photographers.

Lee Miller in Print is Lee Miller's first solo exhibition in Belgium. It offers a new perspective on Miller's work and life, through photos and articles of hers that were published in magazines and publications. At the same time, the exhibition highlights the development of the photographic medium in the 20th century, and the use of photographic images as a propaganda tool during the Second World War.

The exhibition Lee Miller in Print was originally developed by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and was realised at FOMU thanks to an extensive loan from the Lee Miller Archives.

In the exhibition Spiraling Outward, Iranian-Belgian artist Mashid Mohadjerin (°1976, Tehran) invites you to explore her universe. She interweaves photography, video installations, collages and text into a personal and refined whole, blurring the conventional boundaries between art and documentary, time and space, the factual and the emotional.

Family stories merge with major political events and are set against the backdrop of the broader history of the Middle East and North Africa. Mohadjerin reveals nuances that lie beneath the extraordinary and the familiar. In the exhibition Spiraling Outward she offers an alternative, multifaceted view of current themes such as migration, cultural transformation and resistance.

For the first time, she is showing a selection from the Riding in Silence series, which follows on from her artist book Riding in Silence & The Crying Dervish (2025). The selection combines a testimony about forced migration with a broader investigation of how ideas about masculinity intersect with political ideology in a rapidly changing world.

During Antwerp Art Weekend, visual artist Mashid Mohadjerin and composer-musician Jan De Vroede will present two half-hour performances at the exhibition Spiraling Outward.

Mohadjerin and De Vroede jointly created the installation Border Crossing (2024), which can be seen in the exhibition. The installation reflects on spatial borders and migration through image and sound.

Mohadjerin and De Vroede will create a multidisciplinary half-hour performance for the installation. They will improvise with their voice, instruments, found objects and projections. They will present this performance twice on 31.05 at 14:00 and 16:00.

At the invitation of FOMU, visual artist Katja Mater (NL° 1979) explores the museum collection and makes a special selection around the theme of 'time'. Mater designs unique frames for the collection pieces and uses them to create spatial installations.

In the exhibition No Longer Not Yet you can experience 'time' in various ways: from solar time and the rhythm of your body to times of memory, asynchronous time, cosmic time and invisible time. You will see objects that date from before the invention of photography to the absolute present.

Mater frames the works, their (anonymous) makers and the subjects in the photos with care and precision. Mater draws your attention to details that are often overlooked or forgotten, such as a message on the back of a photo. At the same time, Mater creates new works, inspired by objects from the museum collection, including the restored Keizerpanorama, a masterpiece from the FOMU Collection.

Mater makes 50 new stereo photos especially for the Keizerpanorama, which play with language, space and perception. The Keizerpanorama is a stereo viewing box from 1905 that made a 3D photographic spectacle accessible to a mass audience. Around the viewing box, 25 people can sit on stools at the same time to experience the magic of three-dimensional images.

FOMU houses one of the most significant photo collections in Europe, featuring both equipment and photo documents. Each year, FOMU also presents several temporary exhibitions by nationally and internationally renowned photographers. Visitors can also attend lectures and workshops, as well as daily screenings organized by Cinema Lumière in the two beautifully equipped cinemas.