During her time at Residency B28, the author Ida Therén continues working on her book, drawing on ideas and inspiration from networks formed during the residency period. The aim of the residency is to establish connections—for exchange, translations, visits, and other collaborations with a Nordic context.
In March 2025, Ida Therén’s second novel, “Det osynliga templet – en vision om Hilma af Klint” was published. It focuses on Hilma af Klint over the course of a few days in London in the 1920s and is the first part of a planned trilogy. Hilma and the women around her were deeply Christian, with theosophical and later anthroposophical influences, and were often active in cultural life and, to some extent, in public debate. They became engaged early on in issues such as vegetarianism, women priests, homosexual relationships, and the rights and opportunities of women artists in society.
In this series, Therén aims to portray life around the turn of the century, in Stockholm in general but also specifically from women’s perspectives. On a deeper level, she explores the fault line between wanting to do good and inadvertently supporting evil.
Therén seeks to depict what happens when one goes too far into spirituality and loses touch with earthly reality—something she believes many people still need to be reminded of today. The working title is “Ljus och kärlek” a reference to a mantra within New Age and spiritual seeking even today, which often overlooks reality and therefore risks being drawn into fascist tendencies.
About the author
Ida Therén is a writer and cultural journalist born in Värnamo and is now based in Stockholm. She made her debut in 2020 with the critically acclaimed novel Att omfamna ett vattenfall, followed in 2025 by Det osynliga templet – en vision om Hilma af Klint, which received strong reviews and was awarded “Novel of the Year” by the Primas Literary Prize.
Her artistic practice explores historical experience, power structures, and marginalized voices, working at the intersection of documentary and poetic writing. Drawing on both archival research and intuition, she often engages with historical figures and pivotal social moments, using a modernist approach to evoke psychological and collective experience rather than simply recounting events. In her novel on Hilma af Klint—once largely unknown but now regarded as one of Sweden’s most significant artists—Therén offers new perspectives through a narrative grounded in real events and years of research, examining how the past can resonate in the present.