Since everyone in the entire world already loves Swedish Girls it was about time to organize a meet-and-greet and it happened at Digitaliseum in Malmö 2023.

From October 2022 we started spending more time in Milan with the ambition to create a base here too. We had been talking about moving further down in Europe since school and after traveling around a bit we found ourselves very comfortable and welcomed in Milan.

Alcova invited us once again to exhibit with them for 2023 and develop the project we did with ArkDes. The exhibition at ArkDes closed April 1st and was then shipped to Milan. The venue for this edition of Alcova was an old slaughterhouse and we were assigned a big square in front of the main building. It became our biggest installation thus far and the exhibition had 90 000 visitors in one week. The coolest thing about showing the work in this context was to understand the difference between public life in Italy vs Sweden. The way the public interacts with each other is much more natural in Italy than in Sweden and this was a clear example. People approached the installation with such confidence, like it already belonged to them. You could tell Italians have another habit of collective life and sharing spaces than we do in Sweden. Don't mind me generalizing but it did give us water on our mill as we say in swe hehe

"Experience the Experience" was an exhibition that portrayed a nightclub experience through spatial installations reflecting the various emotions that arise in a club environment. Each piece, accompanied by sound from Studio Barnhus, followed the dramaturgy of a club night. During the opening night, Axel Boman, Kornél Kovács and Pedrodollar performed a five-hour live set, where the sound from different parts of the venue merged into an immersive and physical experience for the visitor.

Here's the map of the venue and the different feelings we portrayed:

This project was really cool, should do it again sometime

Guess we'll never know:)

Another result of our presence at Alcova 2021 was meeting Miguel Leiro, curator of Mayrit Bienal in Madrid. He invited us to do a residency and an exhibition at ACME Estudio in Madrid during Mayrit Benial 2022. ACME Estudio is a metal workshop and exhibition space run by 3 amazing cool awesome Spanish Girls that we are now lucky to call our friends.

The theme of the biennial was Submerged Worlds and we articulated a concept around the topic of waiting.

“Stuck with Swedish Girls” is a multifaceted installation that explores reality and representation through a combination of physical and digital elements. 7 "I <3 Swedish Girls Chairs" are designed with flat pack construction (swedish culture;)) emphasizing the project’s everyday quality and accessibility. By idolizing Swedish Girls we highlight the project’s irony surrounding consumption and status. On a IKEA-side table there's a gossip magazine titled “SWEDISH GIRLS!” that showcases the mythologization and reflects on public image. A video work on a TV displays digital glitches of Swedish Girls interacting in a virtual world, which questions the boundary between reality and simulation, and how we interact with them. Are you interacting from the glitch or watching others do it? What are you waiting for?

The most exciting dimension of this project (in my opinion) was to see visitors interact because it activates the work in a performative way.

This installation has since then been traveling and exhibited in Kunsthal Aarhus 2023, Digitaliseum Malmö 2023, Zentralwäscherei Zürich 2023, Supermarket Art Fair Stockholm 2024 and Röhsska Museet Göteborg 2024.