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Posts Tagged ‘sweden’

Floating Saunas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2022| 6 Comments »

Photo: Kevin Scott/Dezeen.
The designers of this sauna aimed to build a structure that engaged the local waterways and encouraged people to use them throughout the year, says Dezeen.

When Erik saw my post about a birdhouse championship, he told me one picture reminded him of floating saunas in Sweden. I had to look that up. I found out that saunas on the water are both like and unlike ice-fishing huts. You definitely have to dress differently.

Jenna McKnight at Dezeen writes about the sauna in the above photo: “Visitors can take a plunge into a cold lake after warming up in this floating wooden sauna by Seattle firm goCstudio – the latest example of the trend for buoyant architecture (+ slideshow).

“The structure is intended to be used all year round on Seattle’s lakes and can accommodate up to six people. It is called WA Sauna. … It follows the growing trend among architects to explore the possibilities afforded by building on water rather than land.

” ‘Following in the Scandinavian tradition of saunas as a place for gathering, WA Sauna provides a place for Seattle’s community to share a unique experience on the water,” said goCstudio, a firm founded in 2012 by Jon Gentry and Aimée O’Carroll. …

“Inspired by the concepts of fire, water and community, the designers aimed to build a structure that engaged the local waterways and encouraged people to use them throughout the year. The $25,000 (£17,000) project was funded through community donations and a Kickstarter campaign hosted in the fall of 2014.

“The deck consists of a pre-manufactured aluminum frame and marine-grade plywood with a clear varnish. Boats and kayaks can be tied up to the deck. The floating structure is powered by a 36-volt electric trolling motor. More than two dozen 208-litre plastic drums keep the vessel afloat. …

“Spruce was used to clad the interior and to form the benches. A wood-burning stove heats the space. Users can easily exit the vessel via a door or side hatch and dive into the cool water. …

“The structure was built by studio employees and skilled volunteers. It was erected within a warehouse owned by the local brewery, Hilliard’s, which allowed the team to use the space for free.

“One of the greatest challenges was getting the structure to the lakefront for the first time. … ‘Towed on six steel casters with a 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon, we slowly crept along at dawn making the eight-block trip to the boat ramp in just under three hours.’ …

“Rising sea levels and a shortage of development sites are leading to a surge of interest in floating buildings, with proposals ranging from mass housing on London’s canals to entire amphibious cities in China.

“Other examples that, like WA Sauna, are targeted at communities include a buoyant Nigerian school and a travelling London cinema.”

You can read about another nice sauna at designboom, a site that doesn’t seem to believe in capital letters: ” ‘löyly’ is a prefab floating sauna made of swiss douglas fir. gently swaying in the middle of lake geneva, ‘löyly’ is a floating prefab sauna designed by trolle rudebeck haar – a graduate from the lausanne university of art and design. haar completed this project after spending a year in finland, where he found a true appreciation for the sauna concept and translated it into ‘löyly’ – his final year project. 

“haar designed the structure as a 24 sq. ft floating sauna made of locally sourced swiss douglas fir – a lightweight yet durable material that he salvaged from a sawmill nearby. the entire structure was then coated with teak oil to create a more resistant shell all while preserving the fir’s natural look and feel.

“the interior of the floating sauna oozes with tones of intimacy and comfort. using sliding doors that echo japanese shoji screens, visitors are met with a small wooden burning stove from morzhand. … the choice of stove was made based on practicality: ‘I chose it because it’s compact, transportable, lightweight, and easy to heat up’,  comments haar. 

“haar also had to consider balance and weight while designing the sauna. ‘I was calculating the mass of every unit,’ he explains. the presence/absence of people aboard the floating structure, as well as the placement of the barrels underneath it were all carefully studied to create a safe and enjoyable experience. 

“in just six hours, the floating sauna was built – but haar made it easy to disassemble and scale for different uses.” 

You might also want to click at the Gessato website to see a sauna created by an Italian design team.

Beautifully integrated into its natural surroundings and context, this floating sauna conceptually links Sweden, Italy, and Japan.

“The structure stands on a floating platform, connecting the lake to the land and providing a relaxing space for the guests staying in the clients’ small bed and breakfast. … Self-built by the studio, the project pays homage to nature and sustainability, with impact on the birch forest minimized by moving the sauna on the surface of the water. …

“A glazed wall provides stunning views over the lake, helping guests relax completely and contemplate the beauty of nature. This floating sauna project was presented during the Superdesign Show 2017, held at Superstudio Più via Tortona 27, Milano in April 2017.”

More at Gessato, here, at Designboom, here, and at Dezeen, here. Lots of super pictures.

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Sámi Art at the Biennial

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 23, 2022| 9 Comments »


Photo: Michael Miller / OCA.
Venice Biennale Sámi Pavilion artist Máret Ánne Sara and her brother, Jovsset Ante Sara.

The Sámi are indigenous people of Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Today’s post is about the art some of them have chosen to present to the world at the Venice Biennale this year.

Anna Souter reports at Hyperallergic, “Sámi artist Pauliina Feodoroff says that ‘to be Indigenous is to be site-specific.’ For centuries, colonial governments have deliberately represented the site-specific Indigenous landscapes of the European Arctic as empty wildernesses. In reality, these are the ancestral lands of the Sámi people. Far from empty, they are ecologically diverse sites of culture, care, and collective endeavor. 

“At this year’s Venice Biennale, the Nordic Pavilion will be transformed for the first time into the Sámi Pavilion. The project undermines the nationalistic structure behind the Biennale, instead recognizing the sovereignty and cultural cohesion of Sápmi, the Sámi cultural region, which covers much of the northernmost areas of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, as well as part of Russia. The three contributing artists — Pauliina Feodoroff, Máret Ánne Sara, and Anders Sunna — draw attention to the ongoing colonial oppression and discrimination experienced by Indigenous Sámi under local and national governments across the Nordic region. 

“Feodoroff’s family members are Skolt Sámi reindeer herders, originally from the part of Sápmi within the Russian border. They were pushed into Finland after World War II, into a reputedly toxic area ravaged by mining and fallout from Chernobyl. Feodoroff’s work for the Sámi Pavilion will combine performance and video installations to explore non-colonial modes of physical expression, emphasizing the close relationship between the body and landscape in Sámi culture.

“Feodoroff has no artist studio; instead she sees the landscapes with which she works as her expanded studio. Her creative practice is inseparable from her work as a land defender. … She laments and resists the logging of old, slow-growth forests for one of Finland’s key exports: toilet paper. The bathos is not lost on Feodoroff and local Sámi reindeer herders, who are bypassed by the transaction, gaining nothing but a degraded landscape and poorer survival rates for their reindeer. 

“To protect and restore remaining old-growth forests, Feodoroff is attempting to use the art market to buy back land to be owned and managed collectively by Sámi people. Purchasing one of her works is framed as a contract through which the collector buys the right to visit an area of land in Sápmi; in return, the artist pledges to protect that land. …

“In 2015, the Norwegian government introduced mass reindeer culling quotas for Sámi herders, hitting younger herders such as artist Máret Ánne Sara’s brother particularly hard. Throughout a lengthy and expensive legal process, Sara has supported her brother’s appeal against the ruling, showing solidarity and resistance through her artistic project ‘Pile o’Sápmi’ (2016-ongoing).

“In 2016, Sara piled 200 reindeer heads outside the Inner Finnmark District Court and topped the pile with a Norwegian flag. The work refers to the 19th-century white settler policy of controlling the Indigenous population of Canada by slaughtering millions of buffalo and piling their bones in enormous heaps. …

“Sara’s work emphasizes that reindeer herding is at the heart of both Sámi culture and the complex ecologies of Sápmi. Her installation for the Sámi Pavilion incorporates preserved dead reindeer calves as bittersweet symbols of both loss and hope. …

“Anders Sunna’s painting and sound installations speak directly to his own history. ‘My paintings tell stories of what happened to my family,’ he says. ‘Today our family has no rights at all, we have lost everything.’ Located on the Swedish side of Sápmi, Sunna’s family has been refused its ancestral right to herd reindeer because of the competing interests of local Swedish landowners. … Sunna’s family has been practicing what he describes as ‘guerrilla reindeer herding’ for 50 years.

“Sunna’s paintings borrow motifs from international protest movements, news footage of riots, and his artistic origins as a graffitist. His move into the fine art world is helping to bring his family’s story to an international audience. For the 2022 Venice Biennale, he has created five paintings depicting episodes from the last five decades of the Sunna family’s struggles. … Sunna tells stories of oppression and even despair in the face of relentless attacks on his family’s rights, but he also hopes for a better future for the next generation.

“Before I visited Sápmi to meet the Sámi Pavilion artists in February 2022, I felt disillusioned with the power of the art world to enact change; despite countless artworks raising awareness of climate breakdown, for example, society has failed to make meaningful changes. But across Sápmi, I met individuals who believed in the capacity for art — and for the Venice Biennale — to make a difference. …

“The stories told in the Sámi Pavilion have rarely been presented on an international stage; and though often deeply personal, they speak to issues that affect us all. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world; it is a litmus test for our environmental future. Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous land management could lead us toward a safer ecological future.”

More at Hyperallergic, here. For related posts, search on “Sámi” at this blog.

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Birdhouse Championship

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 15, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Naturskyddsforeningen.
The aim of the Swedish birdhouse championship is to encourage birds’ nest building and children’s commitment to nature.

I follow @swedense on Instagram, which is where I learned about an annual birdhouse competition for students.

The Swedish birdhouse championship, says Swedense, “is for primary and secondary school classes and is organized by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, @naturskyddsforeningen. The aim is to encourage birds’ nest building and children’s commitment to nature.

“This year’s special prize goes to the special school at Sanda education centre in Huskvarna for their contribution ‘Trafikljuset’ (traffic light). The birdhouse has a built-in camera that lets students follow a nesting bird’s yearly cycle from eggs to flight-ready birds in the schoolyard.

“Birdhouses have come to play an important role in the biodiversity of the forest. The lack of older deciduous trees means that many birds in Sweden are currently suffering from a housing shortage.”

Meanwhile, others are getting into the act.

“Bee Breeders Competition Organizers is excited to announce the results for its Legendary Bird Home / Edition 2 competition! This is the second competition in a series aiming to raise awareness for the global environmental crisis. This competition was held in collaboration with Birdly – a socially-responsible start-up that aims to support environmental activism worldwide through funds raised by selling bird homes.

“Bee Breeders worked with an international jury panel consisting of: Marco Barba, Mexican industrial designer and founder of Marco Barba Design and designer of the KUKU birdhouse product; Andris Dekants, project manager at the Latvian Ornithological Society; Farid Esmaeil, co-founder of Dubai based X Architects and winner of the Aga Khan award for the Wasit Natural Reserve Visitor Center project; Mark Gabbertas, founder of West-London based Gabbertas Studio with a portfolio that includes the Gloster Birdhouse; James Krueger, Design Principal in HMC Architects’ in San Diego studio; Heike Schlauch of Heike Schlauch raumhochrosen which has designed the ‘Vorarlberger Baukunst’ birdhouse series; Jolanta Uczarczyk, who runs Uczarczyk, through which she produces original, handmade works such the Mocak Bird Feeder; and Chad Wright, founder of Studio Chad Wright with a portfolio that includes the Attic birdhouse.”

Last year Sofia Wickström, then a 9th grade student at Futuraskolan International Bergtorp, was one of the finalists with Naturskyddsforeningen. The school’s profile on her says she had “been working on her birdhouse during wood shop since the end of 8th grade totaling about 50 work hours. Her entry is called ‘Bergsprängaren’ (Boom Box).

“When designing her birdhouse, she was inspired when seeing two old boomboxes on the floor of the woodshop room where the project got started, she decided then and there on her design. According to Sofia, the hardest part and what actually took the longest time in making the ‘Boom Box’ birdhouse was getting the edges round and smooth. … In researching birds for this project, Sofia found that small birds actually love bright colors; this was perfect as she herself is a big fan of bright colors, hence the pretty pink/green look to the birdhouse.”

More here and here. Good photos here. I especially love the birdhouse with stones embedded in plaster and a handy woodpile. Who can resist designing a birdhouse after seeing these pictures?

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Swedes Test an Urban Design

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 8, 2021| 8 Comments »


Photo: Elsa Soläng/ArkDes
Designed to be easily moved, each wooden Street Moves element includes a range of features. Above, seating, scooter storage, and a bike rack are good for neighborhoods near transit stops. 

To have the kind of cities we want, we can always rethink what’s there. But the space right outside our front door may be the place to start.

Feargus O’Sullivan at Bloomberg CityLab reports about an idea from Sweden.

“In 2020, as pandemic lockdowns forced billions of people around the world to become intimately familiar with their neighborhoods, one of the hottest ideas in urban planning was the ‘15-minute city.’ A vision for a decentralized urban area that allows residents to meet their daily needs within a quarter-hour walk or bike from their homes, the concept has been pursued as a means of cutting greenhouse emissions and boosting livability in a host of global cities — especially Paris, where Mayor Anne Hidalgo has embraced the model as a blueprint for the French capital’s post-Covid recovery. 

“Now Sweden is pursuing a hyperlocal variation, on a national scale. A plan piloted by Swedish national innovation body Vinnova and design think tank ArkDes focuses attention on what Dan Hill, Vinnova’s director of strategic design, calls the ‘one-minute city.’ … Sweden’s project operates at the single street level, paying attention to ‘the space outside your front door — and that of your neighbors adjacent and opposite,’ Hill says.

“Called Street Moves, the initiative allows local communities to become co-architects of their own streets’ layouts. Via workshops and consultations, residents can control how much street space is used for parking, or for other public uses. It’s already rolled out experimentally at four sites in Stockholm, with three more cities about to join up. The ultimate goal is hugely ambitious: a rethink and makeover of every street in the country over this decade. …

“Unlike the 15-minute city concept, Sweden’s one-minute city model is not about meeting the needs of all city residents at a hyperlocal level — that would overlook fundamentals like public transit, job access, or specialist health care. Instead, the spaces just beyond the doorstep are ideal places for cities to start developing new, more direct ways of engaging with the public, Hill suggests. They are a filter and a portal to the wider world; the atmosphere they generate and the amenities they contain speak volumes about how a community operates and what it values. …

The project seeks to break through assumptions — as prevalent in Sweden as elsewhere — that address streets primarily as places to move and store cars. …

“Though Street Moves’ first steps predate 2020, its choice of focus seems doubly relevant in the wake of a year when stay-at-home orders and street demonstrations reinforced a sense that our immediate neighborhoods are platforms where we must tackle and overcome the most fundamental of social hurdles. While its mix of removing car space and increasing community consultation may sound too utopian to be imitable in the U.S. or elsewhere, the basic tools Street Moves uses are American in inspiration — street furniture units based on the ‘parklet’ model.

“Vinnova’s plan works like this. With design firm Lundberg Design, the project has developed a kit of street furniture, designed to fit the dimensions of a standard parking space and built on hard-wearing pine decks. These units, inserted into the curb space, can be fitted depending on need with seating planters, bike or scooter racks, children’s play spaces or electric car charging stations attached. Easily connectable, the deck panels can either be stand-alone units, or configured to flank an entire street. …

“While municipalities may provide their own versions of this toolkit, the design of each street is based on workshops and conversations with local residents — including schoolchildren. Streets near transit stops might favor more bike parking, while those with cafés could opt for more seating. Some units might emphasize tree-filled planters, others play spaces. Piece by piece, these installations can transform streets into sites of sociability and mixing, joining up steadily into neighborhoods where the space used daily by residents extends little by little out into the open air. …

“The community design process matters as much as the street elements themselves, the project’s leaders emphasize. The installations are easily replaced, adapted or removed, making them provisional propositions instead of one-size-fits-all permanent solutions. Some could be experiments that eventually lead to more extensive redesigns; others might be seasonal. ‘The most important things about these prototypes we’ve made is that they could all be the wrong thing,’ says Kieran Long, director of Arkdes. …

“None of this direct engagement and transformation can happen, however, if cities themselves don’t have concrete ways to carry it out. Right now, many cities charged with the daily business of trying to collect garbage and keep schools running don’t, with some good reasons, necessarily have the firing of a new political imagination high on their agenda. In Sweden, where the government’s early reluctance to institute coronavirus lockdowns proved disastrous, the pandemic is further complicating this challenge — but it could also be contributing to a willingness to press the reset button.”

More at CityLab, here.

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Winter Photos, With Face Masks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 24, 2020| 4 Comments »

This year, while choosing ornaments for the tree, I felt particularly drawn to anything that looked like a bird or an angel. All the bird and angel ornaments went up. The small snowy ball also gives me a good feeling. It was from a winter wedding in 2011.

On Sunday’s trip to Rhode Island to deliver the kids’ presents, Suzanne prepped her porch with cozy, festive elements. The candelabra has a bit of a story. When Suzanne and John were still little kids, I bought two of these from a Lillian Vernon sale. When my children grew up and had their own homes, I gave each one their candelabra. They light theirs every year with their own children.

Suzanne and Erik allowed each kid to open two gifts early so Mormor and Morfar could see how they reacted while we were still at their house.

In addition to those Christams-y photos, I want to share a couple pictures from far-flung friends. Earle, in California, makes the magnificent wooden bowls on his lathe and is known to donate a bowl to one of his environmental causes at the holidays to delight the top donor.

Stuga40 is in Stockholm, where there is almost no sun at this time of year. She caught a little today after weeks of overcast skies. I asked her take a picture of a shadow, but she said the sun is so low on the horizon now that she might not be able to. In the end, she was able to get some very, very long shadows! The sun set at lunchtime.

But you can trust those Swedes to light up their nights with outdoor decorations and to make some kind of fun during the day, too. Stuga40, in the light green jacket below, stepped into the instructor’s role for the outdoor exercise class after new Covid restrictions kept the leader from traveling by bus. The woman in red is 91, and rain or snow, they all keep up the outdoor exercising. Stuga40 says she leads the group using Spotify and a speaker from home. One day, some passing teens and a few boys from a school class joined in.

Back in wintry New England, you can see that our big new bird feeder is popular. It arrived the day before we had a snowstorm, and it’s such fun to watch. The gray squirrel tolerates a rabbit but chased away a gang of 11 mourning doves. Also very aggressive are the goldfinches. Does anyone know (Nancy G.? Kim?) if goldfinches are always aggressive? The first day at the feeder we had cardinals, bluejays, a purple finch, a house finch, juncos, and even a red bellied woodpecker. Now it’s mostly goldfinches. I love them, but I do wonder.

There’s also a little red squirrel that makes tunnels under the snow and pops up all over the yard like a gopher.

Happy Holidays to Everyone, wherever you are and whatever your weather!

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Bonus: Bee Hotel in Sweden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 4, 2020| 3 Comments »

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After I posted yesterday about the bee hotels and other pollinator-friendly initiatives in Costa Rica, I received several delightful photos taken by Lolo Dahlsten in Sweden. A member of Erik’s extended family, Lolo writes, “I had some fun Saturday a week ago when I made this bee hotel. The metal part is actually two zinc shelves tied together with some tarred rope. The other day I put some moss and dandelions on the roof 🌻🌱🐝 Today there’s only the moss left.”

Of course, I had to show you all that bee hotels are a real thing — not just in Costa Rica. And it looks like you can also bring your bee hotel indoors for company at dinnertime.

Hat tip: Stuga40

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Swedish Girl Finds Ancient Sword

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 29, 2018| 2 Comments »

saga-sword

Photo:  Svt Nyheter
Saga Vanecek, an 8-year-old Swedish-American girl, pulled a 1,500-year-old sword from a lake in southern Sweden last July, prompting comparisons to Arthurian legends about the Sword in the Stone and the Lady of the Lake.

You never know when wonders will appear. This little girl was not out helping archaeologists on a dig like the 13-year-old boy in this earlier post. She was just dawdling in a lake while her father was calling her to hurry so he could watch the World Cup on television. And then — a miracle.

Jon Henley writes at the Guardian, “An eight-year-old girl has pulled a 1,500-year-old sword from a lake in southern Sweden.

“ ‘I felt something with my hand and at first I thought it was a stick,’ Saga Vanecek told the local Värnamo Nyheter [VN] newspaper. ‘Then it had a handle that looked like it was a sword, and then I lifted it up and shouted: “Daddy, I found a sword!” ‘

“The find, made in July but announced only [in October] for fear it would trigger a summer stampede to the site at Tånnö on the shore of Lake Vidöstern, felt ‘pretty cool and a bit exciting,’ she told the Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio. …

“Her father, Andrew, said in a Facebook post that the sword, estimated by experts from the nearby Jönköping county museum to date to the 5th or 6th century AD, before the Viking era, was still in the remains of its wood and leather scabbard.

“He told VN he had been waiting impatiently for his daughter to come in from the water because the football World Cup final was about to start, but she was busy skimming stones. Then she stooped and held up the ancient weapon.

“Neighbours confirmed to the Swedish-American family, who moved to Sweden from Minnesota last year, that the rusted artefact did indeed look old, and Nevecek called an archaeologist the next day.

“Annie Rosén, from the museum, said: ‘I was on holiday, but when I saw the pictures I went straight away. You cannot imagine such a sword – so well preserved.’

“Another expert at the museum, Mikael Nordström, [said] they were exploring the possibility it could have been a place of sacrifice. … Subsequent searches by museum staff and local council workers uncovered a brooch from roughly the same period but there were no other significant finds.”

More at the Guardian, here. And you can read Saga Vanecek’s own report here.

May 2019 be the year that girls everywhere pull miracles from lakes and stones.

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Nordens Ark

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 12, 2018| 6 Comments »

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Photo: Nordens Ark
Nordens Ark in western Sweden is dedicated to protecting and preserving endangered species.

Two of my grandchildren had a happy time this summer at a Swedish park that is dedicated to protecting and preserving endangered species. The children’s Swedish grandmother told me that the pony rides and other attractions draw families in to Nordens Ark and then get them interested in supporting the sustainability mission.

From the paark’s website: “Nordens Ark is a private non-profit foundation that works to ensure endangered animals have a future. We are engaged in conservation, rearing, research and training, as well as doing what we can to increase public awareness of biological diversity. Much of our work is done in the field, both in Sweden and overseas.

“We strive to strengthen populations of at-risk species by releasing individuals into the wild, and by improving the habitats in which they live. In Sweden, Nordens Ark has national responsibility for breeding and releasing, among others, the peregrine falcon, white-backed woodpecker, lesser white-fronted goose, green toad and several beetle species.

“Since the turn of the millennium hundreds of mammals and birds born at Nordens Ark have been released into nature, among them otters in Holland, European wildcats in Germany and lynxes in Poland. We have reinforced the Swedish peregrine falcon population with more than 175 individuals, and Sweden’s amphibian population with some 10,000 animals.”

More at the website, here. Sweden Tips lists the park in its survey of Sweden’s best zoos. If you want to visit Nordens Park, you can also find lots of enthusiastic comments at Trip Advisor, including “a fantastic place for a photographer” and a recommendation to come at feeding time.

Someone I know, 3-1/2, took a pony ride at Nordens Ark in Bohuslän, Sweden, this summer. The park encompasses more than [900 acres] and includes pastureland, woodland and animal facilities.
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New England Summer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 5, 2018| 8 Comments »

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I wanted to share a few recent photos. Most of them were taken by me in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but Stuga40 sent the flower cross from her neighboorhood park in Stockholm. It’s part of the Swedish Midsommar tradition.

The KindnessRocksProject seemed like a wonderful idea. You take a rock when you or others need a little kindness and you leave a rock with a kind message for someone else. This iteration of the project was at a day camp, where children were working on the messages.

The next two photos were taken in newly preserved land along the Concord River, a beautiful area for walking and enjoying nature. After that, there’s a geranium that is glowing in the evening light. If I had taken the shot from the other side, it wouldn’t have looked nearly as magical.

Next is some street art on the remnant of an old building in downtown Providence, an area where a morning walk always provides curious photo ops.

The street art is followed by three experiments with sunlight and shadow and then two of my grandchildren at the parade on the Fourth of July.

I felt ambivalent about the Fourth this year, when Frederick Douglass’s speech “What Is the Fourth of July to the Slave?” seemed more relevant than ever and the darker parts of the Declaration of Independence took on new prominence. And to the kids pictured here, all the parade meant was candy, and things did not end well.

Not to worry. Gives us a variety of goals to aim for next year.

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Swedish Companies Hiring Syrians

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 28, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Målerås
Glassworkers in the Målerås factory in Sweden. The company successfully brought on refugees when it was short-handed.

This story combines two of my great interests: Sweden and helping refugees. Erik’s homeland showed compassion by taking in 32,000 asylum seekers in 2015, but in a win-win scenario, some Swedish design companies have benefited.

Alicia Brunker writes at Architectural Digest, “Rather than fear that refugees will take jobs away from locals, the Nordic country views Syria’s tradition of handicraft skills as a way to smoothy integrate its people into their own design-centric society. This mindset is especially true for the design community in southern Sweden, also known as Småland, a vast region that family-run glass workshops and international heavyweights, such as IKEA, call home. …

“Five years ago, the Scandinavian design purveyor began working with the women’s co-operative [Yalla Trappan ] to offer marginalized groups opportunities for livelihood, including Syrian refugees who have settled in southern Sweden without employment. As a way to give them economic independence, IKEA hired 10 women to work at their Malmö store, offering sewing services. …

“Whether a local customer needs a quick repair to their Ektorp sofa cushion or requires custom embroidery, the women at IKEA’s Malmö store will take the order at their sewing atelier and stitch it off-site.

“Beyond in-store sewing services, IKEA has recently teamed up with the Jordan River Foundation, opening up a production center in Amman. … At the facility, the Jordanians and an IKEA designer collaborated on a new range of textiles — including pillows, rugs, and baskets — that meld both culture’s styles into a single object. …

“The Jordanians lay the yarn on the floor and weave by hand on their feet. However, with IKEA’s ultimate goal of making these women employable in the future, they plan to teach the refugees more modern stitching practices with machines for upcoming collections.

“Inadvertently, IKEA has also provided employment for refugees through their annual Art Event. This year, the design giant enlisted local glassworks company Målerås to work with international artists on a limited-edition series of contemporary glass figurines.

“During the production process, the factory was short-handed and decided to add a dozen new contractors, four of which were Syrian refugees, to their workforce. Though they didn’t have glass-making experience, the men were familiar with working with their hands. Through an eight-month training period, the refugees learned the various steps of production and they picked up on their new country’s language and culture. …

“Benny Hermansson, owner and CEO of Gemla Möbler, the country’s oldest furniture factory, says the practice of working with craftsmen from other regions dates back to the 19th-century. … One of the [Syrians] who joined Gemla worked at a furniture company back in Syria, crafting headboards and cabinets out of wood. …

” ‘There are fewer and fewer schools educating students in these fields,’ [Hermansson] says. ‘It has become difficult to recruit people with the right competence. We have a need, and so do these refugees.” More here.

This is reminding me of a Syrian carpenter that I helped out a bit last year. He was thrilled to find work in Rhode Island installing insulation. I wonder if he has gotten into woodworking since then.

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Sweden Opens Klingon Center

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 19, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photo: u-theopera
A scene from “u,” the first Klingon opera on Earth.

I was late to the Star Trek party. I didn’t get hooked until the spinoff Deep Space 9, which featured an actor I had performed with as a child (René Auberjonois). But I have friends who are lifetime Trekkies — Asakiyume for one. (She’s a Vulcan.)

Partly because I’m interested in invented languages like Esperanto, I have written before about Klingon, a language created for Star Trek. Today I’m here to tell you about a new Klingon center — in Sweden, if you can believe it.

Lee Roden writes at The Local, “The world’s first ‘Klingon tourist centre’ [opened February 3] in Sweden, in a collaboration between a Stockholm theatre and an organization which calls itself the Klingon Institute of Cultural Exchange.

“The doors of ‘Visit Qo’noS’ [are] open at Turteatern in southern Stockholm … until late March. No stone has been left unturned at what Turteatern’s Theresa Jonasson told The Local is the ‘first Klingon centre in Alpha Quadrant’ (which apparently is the part of the Milky Way where Earth lies, in Star Trek lore).

” ‘The visitors check in at the reception desk, where they will get some tourist information, such as a visitor map of the Klingon capital First City. They will then be invited into the ceremonial presentation hall. The non-hologram live-act presentation is performed by the four Klingon ambassadors Ban’Shee, Mara, Morath and Klag, all from the House of Duras,’ she explained.

” ‘The visitors/audience will be introduced to the Klingon culture and customs and acquire lifesaving tips to apply when interacting with Klingons. There will also be a singalong, dancing, Klingon opera, and scenes from the famous Klingon play Romyo je joloywI’ (better known on Earth as Romeo and Juliet), by Shex’pir.’ …

“Even by science fiction standards, Star Trek fans are known for being a particularly passionate bunch, and the Stockholm theatre has been careful to try to meet their high expectations when it comes to costumes and staging. It has also called upon the help of Klingonska Akademien (The Klingon Academy), an Uppsala-based society with expertise in the Klingon language. …

“The Klingons will be of the more traditional kind [says Jonasson]:

‘The most common question is if the Klingons look like the Klingons in the new Star Trek TV series Discovery, which of course they do not. That series is offensive for Klingons, and should not be mentioned during the presentation.’ …

“For any readers fluent in alien languages, a message from the Klingon Institute of Cultural Exchange in Klingon can even be found here.”

More at the Local, here.

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Swedish Cowboys and Syrian Refugees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 3, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photo: Pieter Kuiper
Entrance of High Chaparral in Sweden. The Wild West theme park has been used to house Syrian refugees.

I knew that Italians were fascinated by cowboys in the Wild West. I knew they made “spaghetti westerns.” But it turns out that legends of the American frontier have intrigued people in many other countries as well.

In fact, in Sweden, Big Bengt was so fascinated that he built a Wild West theme park, calling it High Chaparral. It employees Syrian refugees, among others.

Reports On the Media (OTM) at WNYC radio, “In the middle of nowhere southern Sweden, there’s a popular Wild West theme park called High Chaparral, where Scandinavian tourists relive the action of the old American cowboy films. For over a year, the park served another function: a refugee camp for some 500 of the 163,000 migrants – many from Syria – who applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015.

“That Syrians would find refuge here actually jibes with High Chaparral’s interpretation of the Old West, which emphasizes the new life that the frontier offered to beleaguered pioneers, and the community that was required to survive there. …

“OTM producer Micah Loewinger traveled to High Chaparral last summer, where he met Abood Alghzzawi, a Syrian asylum-seeker, who embarked on an incredible journey to the Wild West of Sweden. …

“Special thanks to David Smith, author of the forthcoming book Cowboy Politics: Frontier Myth and the Twentieth Century Presidency from University of Oklahoma Press. For more about High Chaparral, check out two fantastic documentaries about the park from David Freid and MEL Films”: here and here. You can listen to the WNYC radio feature here.

I wanted to know more about the park’s founder, so I went to Wikipedia: “Big Bengt was born in 1922 in Brännehylte, Småland. His parents owned a forest farm and a wood mill. Big Bengt was involved in starting [many] companies. His interest in the Wild West was born from coming from a countryside where many had emigrated to America and from the stories they told. Bengt went to the United States himself in 1956 and in 4 months covered 4,000 km. He came back to Sweden with a lot of impressions. When the Swedish national phone company had to get rid of 200,000 telephone poles, Bengt took the opportunity and constructed a fort. When many people started to get curious about the place, he realized its possibilities.”

Photo: Micah Loewinger
Abood Alghzzawi, dressed as a cowboy, poses with other High Chaparral employees in southern Sweden.

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Malmö’s Shops for Mice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 1, 2018| 10 Comments »


I once posted a picture of Legos used to “repair” a wall in Fort Point. A tourist brochure ended up using it. I’ve also featured artists like Slinkachu and David Zinn, who create tiny scenes in streets. Today I want to tell you about mouse storefronts mysteriously popping up in Sweden.

Reports the Swedish edition of The Local, “The appearance of anonymous art has brought smiles to the faces of Malmö residents after a miniature, mouse-sized shop and restaurant took up residence on one of the city’s streets.

“Anyone in the area of the intersection between Bergsgatan and Almbacksgatan in the southern Swedish city should pay attention to where they walk: hidden at ground level lies a French nut store named ‘Noix de Vie’ (Nuts of life) selling a range of nuts for the city’s mice.

“Next door, an Italian restaurant called ‘Il Topolino’ (the Italian name for Mickey Mouse) has moved in, complete with a pin-sized menu attached to the wall detailing its range of cheese and crackers. There are even posters for mouse-related films, and a tiny power station and bicycle outside.

“So who is responsible for the inventive work? An anonymous artist (or artists) going only by the name ‘Anonymouse.’ He, she or they have been periodically posting images on their Instagram account detailing the installation, from the construction stage onwards.”

More at Sweden’s The Local, here.

From Bored Panda: “Anonymouse was fed up with the lack of shops for rodents, so they decided to open a couple of them at once. The 70×30 cm (about 25×12 inch) stores are located in Malmö, Sweden, and they have wide menus that mice can choose their meals from. …

“Besides the well-crafted interiors, there are posters about upcoming mice concerts and other events.”

Find these photos and more by searching the hashtag #Anonymouse_MMX on twitter. The twitter account itself seems to have been removed.

Hat tip: @morinotsuma on twitter.

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Swedish Oat Milk Is Not Just for Babies

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2017| 4 Comments »

After my two half-Swedish grandchildren were off breast milk — or even before — they started on bottles of a ground-up oat concoction that I’m told all Swedish children drink rather than cow’s milk. Välling. We can’t get along without it.

So the following story from the Guardian is not as curious to me as it might be to others.

Tom Levitt reports, “Adam Arnesson, 27, is not your usual milk producer. For starters, he doesn’t have any dairy cattle. Our first photo opportunity is in the middle of one of his fields of oats.

“Until last year all these oats went into animal feed, either sold or fed to the sheep, pigs and cows he rears on his organic farm in Örebro county, central Sweden.

“With the support of Swedish drinks company Oatly, they are now being used to produce an oat milk drink …

“ ‘The natural thing for us would be to increase our livestock numbers, but I don’t want a factory,’ he says. ‘The number of animals has to be emotionally right so I know each of them.’ …

“The rearing of livestock and meat consumption accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Alongside carbon emissions from deforestation (for pasture or crops to feed animals), the livestock sector is also the single biggest human-related source of methane (from cattle) and nitrous oxide emissions (from fertiliser and manure), two particularly potent greenhouse gases. …

“ ‘I had a lot of arguments on social media with other farmers, because I thought what Oatly was doing could bring better opportunities to our sector,’ says Arnesson, who decided to contact the company in 2015 to see if they could help him switch away from livestock. …

“After the first year of producing oats, analysis by researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences found that Arnesson’s farm was producing double the amount of calories for human consumption per hectare and had halved the climate impact of each calorie produced. …

“ ‘I don’t want to take pride from having a tractor or producing 10 tonnes of wheat or a sow with 10 piglets, but in feeding and preserving the planet – that is one of the big things I want as a farmer to be involved in changing,’ says Arnesson.

“Oatly said it plans to work with three more farmers to demonstrate the environmental benefits of switching from livestock to more crop production. But Arnesson says livestock farmers need government support in order to do so in large numbers.”

More at the Guardian , here.

Photo: Tom Levitt for the Guardian 
Adam Arnesson in a field of oats at his organic farm in Örebro country, Sweden.

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Trainy McTrainface Launched in Sweden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 27, 2017| 2 Comments »

Artist's impression of the MTR Express' newly unveiled Trainy McTrainface

Photo: MTR Express
Artist’s impression of a Swedish rail company’s newly unveiled Trainy McTrainface.

Heraclitus said you cannot step in the same river twice. (It is never the same river; the water is always new.) But as if they actually could keep stepping in the same river, human beings keep trying to replicate whatever was once popular.

It was kooky enough to try naming a boat Boaty McBoatface, now the popularity of that name is supposed to give a boost to a similarly named train.

Alex Hern writes at the Guardian, “It’s happened again. A public vote to name four trains running between the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg has resulted in one of the four being called Trainy McTrainface in an echo of the name chosen by the British public for the new polar research vessel.

“Trainy McTrainface received 49% of the votes in a poll, jointly run by Swedish rail company MTR Express and Swedish newspaper Metro. …

“The other trains have already been named by the public: one is named Estelle, after the five-year-old daughter of Sweden’s Princess Victoria, the next in line to the Swedish throne.

“Another is named Glenn, after a long-running joke that everyone in Gothenburg is called Glenn.

“The joke has a basis in fact: the name is particularly common in the city and its surrounding area, with its popularity stemming from the 1980s, when local football team IFK Göteborg had four players all called Glenn in its lineup. Forty-three per cent of voters supported the name Glenn. …

“The public vote was eventually overruled in the case of Boaty McBoatface and the ship named the RRS Sir David Attenborough, with an onboard submersible receiving the Boatface appellation.

“MTR Express said the McBoatface decision had led to disappointment worldwide and it hoped the name Trainy McTrainface would ‘be received with joy by many, not only in Sweden.’ ” More at the Guardian, here.

Even if you believe in the wisdom of crowds, using a crowd to name a product rarely results in an inspired selection. I remember how disgusted Ursula’s mother was after a food company to which she had submitted creative names for a new margarine made the boring choice of Blue Bonnet.

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