Art Initiative, Stockholm School of Economics

Hem
Sverige
Stockholm
Art Initiative, Stockholm School of Economics

Art Initiative embeds art in the academic environment of SSE We generate art exhibitions and symposiums directed towards researchers, students and the public.

Our symposiums at SSE contextualize and give the chance to elaborate on the topics and questions conveyed by our art exhibitions. We also work with larger symposiums in different public arenas as well as smaller seminars for top researchers in the arts, humanities and business. Art Initiative actively imbeds art in the academic environment of SSE to make it more knowledge intensive. We mainly work with screenings of video based artworks, photography and installations by contemporary artists.

01/09/2026

Starting today: Every Tuesday, Art Initiative offers open art tours.

Time: 17-17.45
The tour introduces highlights from our permanent collection and selected art classrooms, while exploring the ideas and principles that inform the integration of art within a business school context — and how encounters with art can foster critical reflection, challenge established perspectives, and encourage new ways of thinking.

We gather under the big screen in the atrium on Sveavägen 65. Guests can enter from Bertil Ohlins gata 4.

Tours will be offered in either English or Swedish, depending on the tour guide and the participants.

ArtDivision. Stockholm School of Economics

In the picture: Helena Mutanen
Spiraltrappan (1998, Spiral Staircase)

31/08/2026

Back after the summer, we encounter Disobedience (1997) for the first time in the entrance hall at Sveavägen 65.

The work is one of two by Charlotte Gyllenhammar that have recently become part of the Stockholm School of Economics’ permanent collection. Together, Disobedience and Hang (2011) form a seasonal clock at the heart of the building, alternating in the ceiling of the entrance hall: Hang is on view from January 1 to June 30, followed by Disobedience from July 1 to December 31.

In both works, a woman hangs upside down, her head directed towards the camera while the lower part of her body is concealed by flowing skirts.

Inversion is one of the most consistent and deeply personal themes in Gyllenhammar’s practice. For the artist, turning things upside down is more than a visual device. It is a philosophical position—a way of making the familiar strange and inviting the viewer to confront discomfort, vulnerability and hidden meaning.

“When I changed perspective and filmed the hanging woman from below, I was able to show her and protect her at the same time.”

— Charlotte Gyllenhammar

Hang was donated by the Firestorm Foundation. Disobedience was donated by Alexandra Storåkers to mark her 50th birthday. Both donations contribute to the shared spaces of the Stockholm School of Economics and reflect a commitment to highlighting women artists.

Charlotte Gyllenhammar
Firestorm Foundation

31/08/2026

Literary Agenda special bookcircle with
footballer LILIAN THURAM! ⚽️ ⚽️ 🇫🇷

50 students. 1 book. 5 reading circles. 1 conversation that matters. 1 meeting with Lilian Thuram — here at SSE.

This year, Literary Agenda presents a special reading circle around White Thinking by Lilian Thuram.

A former World Cup-winning footballer, author and philantrophist, Thuram explores the history and mechanisms of racism and challenges us to think about race, identity and society.

HOW IT WORKS
50 students → receive a copy of White Thinking → discuss the book in groups of 10 (in November)
1 special encounter → meet Lilian Thuram at Stockholm School of Economics in late November to discuss the book, its themes and the questions it raises.

SIGN UP via link in bio. Open for the SSE community.

Literary Agenda CSB - SSE Sport Initiative SSE Library

26/08/2026

Read. Discuss. Meet authors.

Registration for the Literary Agenda 2026/2027 is now open.

Sign up, and in a few weeks you’ll be assigned to a group with ten other students and a group leader.

In the pictures, you can see this year’s reading list: six newly published works of fiction.

For nine years, the Literary Agenda has given SSE students the opportunity to take part in book circles and author talks led by faculty, staff, and PhD students.

Each year, participants read six selected books. The aim is to promote self-reflection, empathy, and cultural literacy.

The Literary Agenda is open only to the SSE community.

Learn more and sign up via the link in bio.

www.hhs.se/literaryagenda

The Literary Agenda is sponsored by The Hamrin Foundation. The Hamrin Foundation

25/08/2026

To welcome new students and returning students back for the new academic year, Art Initiative is screening Maria Friberg’s Commoncause (2008) on the big screen throughout August 2026.

In the video, we see more than three hundred basketballs, each stuffed into a velvet bag, making their way down a staircase. The video was filmed on the main staircase at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and can be read in different ways. Each ball is unique, but together they form a kind of collective — working together, moving forward and moving as one. Some of the objects move quickly, while others move slowly. Some stumble along the way, but they all seem to be invading the space — much like the students do at this time of year at Sveavägen 65.

Maria Friberg, born in 1966 in Malmö, is one of Sweden’s most established photo and video artists. Friberg is represented at SSE by three works:

In the boardroom, we find Somewhere Else (1998), one of Maria Friberg’s earliest and best-known works.
On floor 5, in the northern staircase, you can find Changed Position (2014), depicting a man placed on top of a pile of shirts.
In room Estrid (at the Presidents office), you can find Alongside Us [ #2] (2007).

Maria Friberg ArtDivision. Stockholm School of Economics

06/07/2026

Back where it belongs ♥️

Solanum V by Moa Israelsson has returned to the SSE permanent collection and the corridor on Floor 5 after being on loan to Färgfabriken’s exhibition Att slå rot (Taking Root) from April 18 to June 18. Färgfabriken in Liljeholmen is one of Stockholm’s leading spaces for contemporary art and architecture.

When artworks from the SSE permanent collection are invited to museums and art institutions, it’s something to be proud of. Loans like these make it possible for more people to experience our artworks, while also highlighting the role they play beyond our campus.

Israelsson works with materials such as silk, paper, and leather to create sculptures that feel both fragile and resilient. Solanum V sits somewhere between the familiar and the unexpected, inviting you to look a little closer.

Pic 1: Solanum V in the corridor on floor 5 in the SSE main building. Photo by Mikael Olsson

Pic 2: installation view of Marks and bleeds, 2023 and Solanum III & V, 2024, by Moa Israelsson. Detail of picture by Johan Österholm.

Moa Israelsson Färgfabriken

30/06/2026

Kör vi Sverige! 🇸🇪

Go Sweden! Sweden Men's National Team

TB to when the artist Klas Barbrosson exhibited his triptych SNETT/INÅT/BAKÅT (terrorboll), 2025, across Stockholm in a collaboration between Stockholm Konst, Svenska Brasserier, and the Stockholm School of Economics in the winter/spring of 2025.

The work consisted of three monumental football sculptures placed in different parts of the city: one (SNETT) outside the school.

”My work SNETT/INÅT/BAKÅT (Terrorboll) might just be looking inward to find that energy that no one can take away from you - or from us, for that matter.”
”The interpretation is as open as a perfectly placed cross-field pass – one you kill on the foot or cushion on the chest.”
Klas Barbrosson, 2025. ⚽️ 😍

Stockholm School of Economics

23/06/2026

There is an exhibition going on at Norrtullsgatan 2, the premises of the SSE House of Innovation and SSE Business Lab.

On the fourth floor, visitors can experience Border by artist and writer Molly Grad, whose interdisciplinary practice spans sculpture, painting, textiles, and public interventions. As an Artist in Residence at House of Innovation and a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London, Grad seeks out hidden histories and marginalised experiences in order to explore redemptive modes of expression. Grad’s work is fuelled by concerns around the social and environmental responsibilities attached to acts of creation and creativity.
Grad is highlighting the aesthetic possibilities of otherwise overlooked and trodden upon quotidian elements, describing them as “sites of occurrence”, there is equally a personal association with these depictions. Grad reflects on the parallels that can be drawn between these civic incursions and womanhood as well as other communities across gender, ethnicity, and orientation, probing the tropes of what is visible, what is seen, what is acknowledged, and what is valued.

More about Molly Grad:
For twenty years, she worked as a designer for brands such as Stella McCartney and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as designing costumes for artists and filmmakers such as Beyoncé and Martin Scorsese. Since leaving the fashion industry in 2019, Grad turned to art out of an interest in upending social hierarchies by engaging with the human experience in ways that her previous career path did not allow.

The exhibition is part of the SSE Art Initiative and will remain on view through September.

Pic 1 & 2: Footlocker, 2025
Pic 3: XV, 2026
Pic 4: Molly Grad Stockholm School of Economics

17/06/2026

Bye bye Handels x Mejan 2026. ♥️

ebbabirkflo Kristina Nenzén

Hanna Tordai

Kungl. Konsthögskolan Stockholm School of Economics ArtDivision.

02/06/2026

Mark Dion’s art classroom at SSE is the school’s latest classroom conceived in its entirety by a visual artist. While functioning as a regular teaching space, the classroom embodies the idea that education and the development of knowledge engage not only the mind, but also the body and the imagination.

The artist drew inspiration from the classic blackboard of twentieth-century schools, as well as from historical educational charts and diagrams—motifs that frequently recur in his work and in early learning environments. Dion created a series of new drawings and collages that form a wallpaper frieze running along the upper section of the classroom walls.

On the lower section of the walls, the artist painted a unique mural directly onto wooden panels depicting the Midgard Serpent. The serpent also functions as a timeline, weaving together references to art, social sciences, literature, film, economics, and major historical events. Encircling the room, it suggests the interconnectedness of different forms of knowledge and invites students to consider how ideas, disciplines, and narratives evolve over time.

The classroom further includes a selection of framed original drawings and prints by the artist. Together, these elements reflect Dion’s longstanding interest in how knowledge is collected, organised, interpreted, and transmitted. By bringing these questions into an educational setting, the classroom encourages critical reflection on the systems through which we understand and make sense of the world.

Mark Dion is represented by

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Adress

Sveavägen 65
Stockholm
11383

Telefon

+4687369000

Webbplats

https://www.hhs.se/artinitiative

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