IKEA goes art museum

I went to see an exhibit about IKEA at Liljevalchs (a major art gallery in Stockholm) the other day. The interesting thing about IKEA is that IKEA manages to bundle up all the things that are great about Sweden in one blue and yellow box that spreads cultural values in much more powerful ways than any cultural institute or politician or royal family could ever do…

So what is Sweden then according to IKEA blue and yellow box? Sweden is financial responsibility, democratic values, children´s rights, gay rights, “beauty to the people”, Sweden is common sense and childlike spirit, being mindful about natural resources… List goes on and I think it´s pretty amazing that these things can be expressed through something as simple as a couch with a changeable cover (embedded idea that children have the right to be free and messy and the home should be set up accordingly).

IKEA logos from back in the day

IKEA campaign around the time of Obama´s election. Under the slogan “Change begins at home” IKEA set up an Oval Office furnished with IKEA furniture at Union Station in DC, complete with the IKEA flag next to the American flag . I like !

IKEA and gay pride

My favorite item at the exhibit, so beautiful!

Hillbilly Heroin Honey

Went to see an exhibit at Färgfabriken today, photography by Hannah Modigh, Indian-born and living in Sweden. The photography series is from a worn-down community in Virginia. Trashy beauty is sometimes more beautiful than beautiful beauty, or maybe it´s the feeling of staring into another person´s soul that creates the sense of beauty..?

To Michael

Warzone beauty

Was flipping through some of the work of documentary photographer Paul Hansen today on Dagens Nyheter´s website (a major newspaper in Sweden) and wanted to share. Pictures below are from Kongo and Gaza – amazingly dramatic, compassionate images that leave you with no words. It´s good to be lost for words sometimes.

Spacespace

I met with design firm Sandberg&Timonen the other day and was super inspired by their elegant, subtle, spacious designs. I´d say this is Scandinavian design at its best with lots of room to breathe, to think, to imagine new worlds… Gorgeous !!

Digital Disobedience

I met with digital/creative agency Syrup Sthlm today for a portfolio review and was exposed to some pretty interesting digital work – among other things a random dude blogging while traveling Sweden and trying out different youth hostels on behalf of the Swedish Tourist Foundation (see the blog in Swedish here).

Even more interesting though was a campaign encouraging people to perform “digital disobedience” to show their disapproval of the FRA-law (a very controversial law that would give the government authority to go through regular citizens´ e-mail/Internet/phone communication in search of suspicious activities). The project is posted below:

This digital disobedience-spirit is very much all over Sweden these days – apart from Swedish party Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party) just recently winning a seat in the European Parliament, a coalition of Swedish “pirates” called “Embassy of Piracy” are currently taking part in the Venice Biennial (an annual art event) promoting a free Internet and a larger vision of a free world where knowledge is shared and spread without restriction.

The idea is to use a tiny paper pyramid as a symbol of the Embassy of Piracy and allow people to copy this shape, modify it as they please and place it wherever they want as a symbol of the boundlessness of the Internet. The “official song” of the Embassy of Piracy is included below (the beautiful voice belongs to my friend Mai Ueda, Japanese artist living in New York and everywhere, very boundless person herself ):

Art school extravaganza

So finally some real excitement going on at a Swedish art and design school !! Went to the spring graduate show at KKH (Kungliga Konsthögskolan/Royal College of Arts) and found tons of projects to be inspired and touched by… My four favorite projects are presented below.

The first thing greeting the visitors when entering the exhibit is this massive larger than life-toy sculpture stripped off its cute coat and exposed in all its cold machine-like structure! The sculpture moves while laughing hysterically – it´s called “The Destruction of the Ego” since it exists somewhere in between funny toy and completely mad creature who has lost all ego and control of his behavior and enjoys in almost painfully obsessive ways. Made by Tove Kjellmark.

Second project I´d like to share is this huge plastic bag-material installation with beautifully colored lights and a light wind . It´s made by Kristofer Wigren and had a vague explanation that I don´t remember a single word of . I simply loved the scale (I do have a weakness for huge things because I feel like they put life into perspective somehow), the “vulnerable” feel of the material, the shivering energy and the beautiful sound of the plastic material in the wind…

Third project is a painting/photography installation with a huge red painting with a stripe attached to it that continues over the ceiling and down on the other side of the room and back to the painting through the floor… The photography next to it (see the enlargement of a few of the pictures) is a series of human expression that goes from sadness to rage to despair. I love the braveness and boundlessness of this piece, and the way the photography and the painting together tell the story of an emotional eclipse that goes round and round and keeps returning to that big hurtful and maybe liberating red blob of intense emotion… (this is my interpretation of it ). Made by Malin Homberg.

Fourth picture is part of an installation by Mattias Karlsson. Not sure if there’s a deeper meaning behind this piece but I would totally buy this little table for my future apartment .

My Buddha…

… contently looking down at his toenail polish . I strive to be him.

Alien attack :D

So I would like to give a little sneak peak of this iphone game project that I´m currently working on with web firm Lonely Duck. It involves aliens, cuteness, brutal deaths, a fat, spoiled princess, a sicko without legs, axes, bombs, you name it… Super fun . Final characters are below, more pictures to come in the next few weeks!

Pulling faces and Stockholm proportions

I also checked out the final exhibit at Berghs School of Communication (design school craze is almost over now ) and would like to share my two favorite projects.

The first project is a communication campaign for an IT consultant firm. The campaign aims at questioning the pricing of the industry and making the point that this particular IT consultant firm doesn’t charge a higher rate than what the market deems appropriate. So, the whole idea is to have an online auction where the consultant is the auction item. The picture below is from the banner campaign leading to the campaign site – it displays the face of one of the consultants and shows how you can drag and pull the poor dude’s face with your mouse as if he was any product on sale. Interesting and funny idea that would probably only work in a country with strong trade unions and high minimum wages and worker’s rights. Come to think about it, it would probably only work with male auction items too. Oh well, I love the pulling and dragging the dude’s face either way .

Second project is a Graphic Design-project expressing the city of Stockholm through a typeface named Stockholm Sans. The design student told me he researched old street signs from the “folkhemmet”-era (the building of the Swedish welfare state in the 50s) that all expressed a modernist kind of standardization. He also incorporated the proportions and shapes of landmark buildings in Stockholm, and allowed some “flaws” to symbolize the modernist folkhemmet-approach that maybe didn’t always live up to its own expectations. Pretty clever .