Jan Håfström: Sent på jorden/Late on Earth

Swedish contemporary artist Jan Håfström has created the work Sent på jorden ('Late on earth') especially for the Red Corridor on Sveavägen 65. The art installation contains 15 artworks, and it was inaugurated in may 2025.

Vad Är Det Jag Ska Vittna Om? Willy Granqvist tribute (2020)

Maran (2009) and Untitled (boat) (2024)

All photos on this page by Mikael Olsson.

The title of the work refers to a poem by Gunnar Ekelöf. Sent på jorden consists of multiple individual artworks, some of which have previously been shown at the Venice Biennial*. Sent på jorden includes works such as Skolan i Aten (The school of Athens) – a free interpretation of Raphael's famous fresco from the 1500s - a painting that shows antiquity's great philosophers and thinkers, and illustrates the intellectual foundation that our modern higher education rests upon to this day: a tradition of critical thinking, the search for knowledge, and open dialogue. In Håfström's interpretation this heritage becomes a reflection of the power of bildung and the constant movement between ideas, curiosity, and the building of society.

As a complementary voice in the corridor, the work Vad är det jag ska vittna om? ('What shall I bear witness to?') serves as a reminder of the active role we play as witnesses in society.

Surrounding these works is also a series of objects and fragments, like puzzle pieces in a larger narrative. They serve as traces of events and processes of time – signs of a history that is constantly being rewritten. The corridor becomes like an archaeological site, where findings and evidence whisper about the path ahead.

Boken (The book), (2009)

Arsenalen i Venedig (2019)

Untitled (scull), 2020, Jan Håfström.