Ystad skulpturpark

The graffiti artist and musician Carolina Falkholt has produced several public artworks in Sweden. She says that she has gone from working purely in graffiti to something she calls “grafitta”, where her focus is on feminism. She questions power structures in public spaces and has sparked an important debate.

She has lived in New York, the city where graffiti originated. While in New York, she was a member of The Fantastic Partners and Hardcore Chickz. She worked under the pseudonym, Blue, and like other graffiti artists she went around at nights to paint trains and walls.

When she moved back to Sweden in 2005, she switched to painting legally and by working in this way has raised political discussion on images in public spaces to another level than illegal graffiti has the power to do. Who owns public spaces? What are you allowed to do? Who decides? Her motif of naked women’s bodies has caused such strong feelings that she has been censored.

This mural has also provoked discussions and a media debate. The artwork was commissioned by Ystad Municipality in connection with Carolina Falkholt’s participation in the festival, Street Art Österlen, which took place in the summer of 2015. She also had a solo exhibition at Ystad Art Museum during that period.

Other outdoor paintings by Carolina Falkholt can be seen in Simrishamn, Halmstad, Borås and Allingsås. Since 2017, the Wanås Konst sculpture park has exhibited Train of Thoughts, a 22-metre-long train carriage, which is sited in the forest just outside the park.

Another of her murals – “The Butterfly” – can be seen in Ystad, on Södra Dragongatan. It was produced as part of the festival, Street Art Österlen, in 2015.