The Flag Project

Artist: Jacob Dahlgren
Dates: September–October 2021
Locations: SSE main entrance, atrium and the Jacob Dahlgren Room
Format: Outdoor flags, participatory workshops, on-site textile production, an art talk and seminars
Curator: Tinni Rappe
Textile artists: Emelie Lundin and Sara Kallioinen Lundgren

The Flag Project welcomed students back to SSE by placing flags on the poles outside the main building. Inside, the atrium became both a production hall and an exhibition arena, while workshops and seminars explored abstraction as a tool in art, education and research.

What kind of concept is abstraction? What motivates Jacob Dahlgren to look for patterns everywhere he goes? What happens when he takes those patterns out of their context and turns them into art? And what does abstraction in art have to do with the abstracts that researchers write?

An abstraction is a simplification that changes the context and the way we interpret things. It is a method based on taking things away in order to see, experience, highlight or show something beyond. Abstract forms have existed since ancient rock carvings, while abstracts and abstractions also hold a central position in education and research.

Dahlgren’s work is inspired by the traditions of minimalism and constructivism. The project invited the SSE community to widen its understanding of what it might mean to think and act with abstraction as a tool.

During the workshops, students and faculty designed their own flags using patterns drawn from their lives. Textile artists Emelie Lundin and Sara Kallioinen Lundgren, both educated at Konstfack, translated the participants’ designs into sewn flags in the atrium. The finished works were then displayed around the school.

By moving the process of making into the centre of SSE, The Flag Project made collective production visible. The entrance and atrium were no longer only passages through the school; they became an exhibition arena, a workshop and a shared space for discovering abstraction in everyday objects.

The art talk and workshops took place in the Jacob Dahlgren Room on floor 5 of the SSE main building at Sveavägen 65. Dahlgren guided participants through the world of abstraction: how to notice patterns in everyday life and turn them into abstract designs. After each workshop, the designs were sewn into flags in the atrium and exhibited at the school.

September 1, 12:00–13:00 — Art Talk: Signs of Abstraction
September 2, 12:00–13:00 — Workshop #1: Create your own flag
September 8, 16:00–17:00 — Workshop #2: Create your own flag
September 21, 12:00–13:00 — Workshop #3: Create your own flag

Art Initiative also presented a seminar series titled Abstracts, revolving around abstracts and their intentions. The seminars were open to everyone and were held in the Jacob Dahlgren Room.

Jacob Dahlgren (born 1970) lives and works in Stockholm. He studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm from 1994 to 1999 and received his MFA in 1999. His work explores the relationship between formal abstraction and the complex, social culture shared around it. Everyday, mass-produced objects often become building materials for colourful paintings, sculptures, installations and participatory works.

Dahlgren is sometimes called “The Striped Artist.” Since 2001, he has worn a striped T-shirt every day as part of an ongoing, lifelong work—photographing how art becomes life and life becomes art. His practice draws on minimalism and constructivism, but makes their formal languages playful, accessible and connected to daily experience.

His work has been presented internationally, including at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Kiasma in Helsinki, MoMA PS1 in New York and the 52nd Venice Biennale.

The workshops and seminars were held in the newly completed Jacob Dahlgren Room, formerly Room 542. During summer 2021, Dahlgren transformed the classroom into an art installation and a distinctive learning environment that continues to seat 40 students.

The room connects Dahlgren’s artistic practice with the work of SSE. His use of measuring tapes, scales and rulers—and his patterns of charts, bars, tables and circles—echoes the visual tools used in business and research. Its colourful pedagogical atmosphere encourages questions about measurability and the significance of abstraction.