Stockholm, Sweden: On Assignment

We just returned from a brief trip to Stockholm, 3 days to be exact. S was needed in her new role as artist assistant to help complete a piece at the residency program IASPA. We left Berlin Monday morning with a tripod, a video camera, and prepared to explore a new city

Sweden is a rather wealthy country, with a high standard of living and everything is expensive as a result. However, most everyone speaks perfect English along with Swedish and probably a handful of other languages. So we did not have trouble navigating after we figured out just how much money we needed to convert, first taking out 300 Kroner a piece then 700 Kroner more just to be safe. We caught an express train from the airport into the city center and entered into the great labyrinth that is Stockholm's subway tunnel system. I assume that Stockholm receives a lot of snow and winter weather during the year, as a result there are entire sections of the city that you can navigate underground through the subway tunnels without every seeing the light of day. Many of these tunnels have been created to resemble a network of caves and decorated with ornate murals and tile work (see above photo).



Sweden is an ancient port city located about halfway up the coast of Sweden where a river meets the ocean. It is a very old city, having never been bombed in either of the two World Wars, with buildings dating back to the 1600's and a history of viking inhabitants (or at least that is what all of the souvenir shops would have you believe). A hotel was arranged for us near the city center and the residency program was located a few subway stations on the other side of the river. Upon arriving in town we stopped at a Max Burger for lunch. This was my first fast food experience in years, but the food looked relatively fresh. This Swedish hamburger chain was very concerned with maintaining an image above your average McDonald's, they had an Express option where you could order your food from a computer and then retrieve it from the express line. In the regular line you chose from a simple menu with a lot of dipping sauces where they listed the amount of CO2/carbon offsets that you were purchasing with each meal. I can only assume to compensate for the consequences of factory farming and mass transit that are necessary for a fast food chain. Anyway, I guess you could say they sold "guilt-free" burgers. [Correction: with a little more research I have learned that they are listing the amount of carbohydrates on their menu, but the first impression is funnier.]



We then headed back into the tunnel system because S needed to meet WN at his studio and get to work. After years of navigating subways in several different countries our learning curve is pretty high. Even with all of the signs in Swedish we found the correct platform, luckily numbers and colors are a universal language. Sweden is also home to another 'universal' language, IKEA. IKEA is an amazing store that sells modern, modular home furnishings. They do not just sell furniture, they sell "solutions for living". If you have never been to an IKEA store I highly recommend it just for the experience alone. Anyway, here in the land of IKEA they were running an impressive new design for an ad campaign that consisted of a series of larger than life portraits, where the persons face is made up of small pieces of furniture from their catalog of every color and shape. These lined the subway lines and were all over the city, but I digress...



[Spoiler Alert: Stockholm may not be for those with weak stomachs.] While we were waiting on the platform photographing IKEA posters something entirely unexpected happened. About 40 feet away someone fell onto the train tracks. We heard a loud THUD, then people yelling and scrambling about. Before anyone knew what to do you could hear the train coming down the tunnel, everyone leaned over the tracks and started waiving their arms in both directions. The man stood up and was obviously dazed, blood was dripping down the back of his head and he managed to lean over to the platform where 4 or 5 people pulled him out just as the train stopped short of where he was standing. It was unclear how it happened, whether he was pushed, drunk, or has a poor sense of depth perception. Unfortunately, on my second day in the city I was standing on a platform where the victim was not so lucky. As I sat down on the bench, everyone else jumped up and gasped. All I saw was the train stop short on the tracks and the driver with his head in his hands. I have also heard that in Scandinavia, with its nearly 24 hours of daytime and 24 hour nights, the rate of suicide is quite high. Let's just leave it at that.



Maybe this fountain of mythical creatures, can help turn around the mood of this story. Either way, this is the fountain that greeted us as we arrived near the residency. We met up with WN and he gave us a tour of the facilities. After dropping off the camera equipment we went to our hotel, ran several errands to gather materials, they got to work and I wandered around the city, then we all met up at a Chinese restaurant for a meal and a night-cap.



On the second day, S spent the entire day working and I caught up on some reading around the fountain. We met for lunch then I took off see the Modern Art Museum, located on a small island in the middle of the city. I exited the train a little early so I could walk past the Royal Palace, then followed this bridge with the golden crown over to the island with the museum. The island looked like a colonial park with buildings resembling Monticello and a large sailing ship docked nearby. I was under the impression that the island was the geographic and historical center of the city. The exhibitions at the Modern Museum were not disappointing, and they have the largest collection of Duchamp work in the world (for anyone interested). After I bought a $3.50 can of coca-cola I headed over to the central station and the Kulturhuset, Stockholm's cultural center complex.



This area is a hub of activity, where people walk across the black and white triangles all day long or just sit on the adjoining stairs as if watching a parade of the latest fashions from the nearby designer boutiques. The Kulturhuset is a five story modern glass fortress that houses a theater, a comic book story, the city library, several galleries, a dance club and much much more. It is the Swedish equivalent to what the Palast der Republik could have been for Berlin, but that gets into the politics of former East Berlin and communist governments, so I'll just use pictures.


Kulturhuset, Stockholm


Palast der Republik, Berlin circa 1980 (currently being demolished)

I ate dinner in the cafe at the top of the Kulturhuset, then rode the subway around for a while and went back to meet S at the residency. We stayed late into the evening to finish what they had begun because we were scheduled to catch a flight the next morning, even though the Olympic Ping-Pong games on the TV in our hotel room nearly made us late.