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Exhibitions / Yarny, Medusa och en elefant: The Craft of Swedish Game Design

Yarny, Medusa och en elefant

Concept art for Shelter 3 titled “The Herd Seen From Above” (2019) by Emma Richey for Might and Delight. © Might and Delight
Exhibitions
05.07.2019-25.08.2019
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Skeppsholmen, Stockholm

Yarny, Medusa och en elefant: The Craft of Swedish Game Design

We play video games on desktop screens and on devices that we hold in our hands; at home, on the bus, together and alone. They connect, affect, and inspire us. Behind the screens, however, can be found diverse and sophisticated creative processes.

Hand-made sketches and models blend with digital animation to imagine worlds that entertain, puzzle, and immerse us. Characters are sculpted, narratives are scripted, and the end result—the games themselves—range from the playful to the cinematic.

The analogue material behind a videogame can often be buried or forgotten. Yarny, Medusa och en elefant presents never before shown material from five groundbreaking studios—Avalanche Studios ↗, Coldwood Interactive ↗, Landfall Games ↗, Might and Delight ↗, and Neat Corporation ↗—to highlight the visual craft behind one of Sweden’s most important artistic fields.

Through sketchbooks, illustrations, prototypes and models, the exhibition pulls focus on the imaginative work of a group of talented image-makers who form part of this rapidly evolving field of design.

Film: Karin Ekberg, Patrik Forsell, Claes Hedberg, Isak Lundberg, Edvard Stokstad Interview with Emma Richey / Might and Delight.
Film: Karin Ekberg, Patrik Forsell, Claes Hedberg, Isak Lundberg, Edvard Stokstad Interview with Zeke Virant / Avalanche Studios.
Film: Karin Ekberg, Patrik Forsell, Claes Hedberg, Isak Lundberg, Edvard Stokstad Interview with Martin Sahlin / Coldwood Interactive.
Film: Karin Ekberg, Patrik Forsell, Claes Hedberg, Isak Lundberg, Edvard Stokstad Interview with Linnéa Östedt Harrison / Neat Corporation.
Photo: Viktoria Garvare. 2019.
Photo: Viktoria Garvare. 2019.
Photo: Viktoria Garvare. 2019.
Photo: Viktoria Garvare. 2019.

Collaboration with Illustratörcentrum

Illustratörcentrum ↗ (The Centre for Illustration and Graphic Design) is Sweden’s largest provider of visual communication. Funded by the government through the Swedish Arts Council it acts as a go-between, connecting creative talent with clients. Since its inception in the 1970s, IC has been dedicated to promoting its members: more than 1,300 professional illustrators, graphic designers, animators, game creators and cartoonists, with an unparalleled diversity of expression and cutting-edge skills.

Boxen at ArkDes

Boxen ↗ was a platform for fast-changing, experimental projects at ArkDes. It provided space for alternative voices to inspire discussions about architecture, design, and their relationship to society by promoting radical and responsive installations, exhibitions, events and dialogues by and between architects, designers, and thinkers. Designed by the emerging architecture studio Dehlin Brattgård ↗, Boxen opened in 2018 and was dismantled in 2023. All materials have been reused in the 2024 redesign of the museum’s spaces, designed by Arrhov Frick ↗.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Illustratörcentrum and ArkDes with support from Stockholm stad and Region Stockholm.

Curator: James Taylor-Foster
Co-Curator: Sofia Östlund
Initiators: Caroline Agné (verksamhetchef, IC) and Josefine Engström (f.d. ordförande, IC)
Film Production: Karin Ekberg AB (Karin Ekberg, Patrik Forsell, Claes Hedberg, Isak Lundberg, Edvard Stokstad)
Light Design: El och Scenteknik AB
Installation: Stefan Mossfeldt
Program: Elisabet Schön
Graphic Identity: Studio Reko