We are

womxn
artists
and
designers

Paola Bjäringer
Who are you?

I was born in Sweden and grew up in France. After a Master's degree in Gender Studies in London where I lived and worked as a journalist, I returned to Paris in my twenties to open a new kind of gallery focusing on contemporary collectible design with a strong focus on womxn and emerging young artists. Growing up with a Swedish feminist mother, paired with my passion for design and wanting to push for more womxn representation in a traditionally male culture, my gallery called Slott was back then quite avant-garde in its collaborative, gender equal and punk interdisciplinary ways. I founded Misschiefs shortly after I moved to Stockholm in 2016 because I felt an urgent need to push for more representation of womxn artists and designers.

What is Misschiefs?

Misschiefs is a unique independent method aimed at democratizing culture and the arts by specifically focusing on empowering professional womxn artists everywhere. We specialize in taking over empty spaces in strategic city locations to offer rent-free art studios to selected womxn artists. To do so, Misschiefs collaborates with real-estate companies, property owners and visionary brands and individuals who also recognize the urgent need to revitalize culture and urban life. Misschiefs also curates a multitude of exhibitions, performances, talks, and events to actively push for more visibility of womxn artists both in Sweden and abroad. I am proud that Misschiefs has so far in its five years of existence provided rent-free art studios to 45 selected womxn artists and featured over 150 womxn creatives through curated public events and exhibitions. We have showcased Misschiefs in Milan and Paris, each time involving local womxn artists and designers. I am always on the hunt for more empty spaces and exciting new collaborations to get womxns voices heard louder everywhere.

I believe in caretaking as the key mind shift to make culture more inclusive, vibrant, and meaningful. To resist the white patriarchal heteronormative glass ceiling in the (culture) world at large, we need to find real-life and innovative solutions to care more for each other as underrepresented minorities such as women, LGTBTQI+ and non-white. Caretaking as such is the pivotal force I see as absolutely fundamental for the culture world to become more just and ultimately the powerful force we all need to live more meaningful, happier lives together and with this planet. In the future the power of a business will be measured by its level of care. This ground-breaking revolution is already in motion with a more gender fluid and environmentalist young generation of future leaders who put care at the heart of their working methods.

My job is to come up with ideas and strategies to find concrete solutions for womxn artists to make and show their art in better and safer conditions. Making art starts with having space to do just that. But affording an art studio and earning money as a womxn artist today, even in privileged countries like Sweden and Europe at large, has become merely impossible.

Gentrification of cities, real-estate speculation, politics of growing patronaging of the art market and culture sector are some of the factors that end up enforcing predatory fees and rents especially on womxn artists and their work. Womxn artists and designers need safe(r) spaces to work, exchange, collaborate and show their work in a supportive environment designed specifically for them. Misschiefs work consists in dislocating traditional ways of thinking about art/culture by challenging conventional art sites to create more immersive disobedient public experiences led by selected professional womxn artists.

STRONGER TOGETHER

Misschiefs is originally a groundbreaking feminist exhibition of contemporary collectible design showcasing a unique group of ten trailblazing Swedish womxn selected for the punk nature of their work, at the crossing of design, craft and art. The designers are aged 28 to 87 years old, some are internationally known, others established names in the Swedish design world and a few are young upcoming figures. They come from different parts of the country, have various cultural backgrounds and work from studios in distinct locations in Sweden and abroad.

This collection was first shown in Stockholm in February 2020. Part of the sales of the objects and the exhibition catalogue go to an international womxn’s foundation. All the objects and furniture in this collection are handmade only for Misschiefs and sold in a maximum number of three copies each.

Punk by nature, our Misschiefs objects stand for freedom of individual expression in a design culture traditionally strict and controlled. The combination of individual mastery of specific craftsmanship, the free reins of the brief and the nature of the design's uniqueness and rarity, has enabled the creation of a truly singular nomadic collection of womxn-made contemporary collectible design.

Due to the pandemic that struck the world in April 2020, Misschiefs was unable to travel to its next international destinations that were planned first in Milan, then France and the UK. In a unique rescue operation led by a major Swedish property firm, Misschiefs was offered a street level 500m2 raw space in a prime location in central Stockholm, rent-free. During two years this old laundry factory has been temporarily taken over and converted by Misschiefs into what we call Misschiefs Takeover: a unique pop-up with exhibitions, a showroom, a shop and live art studio spaces offered to selected womxn artists.

In 2022 our headquarters in Stockholm moved to a 1000m2 former office space situated in a newly built part of town. This womxn-led production hub was open to the public free of charge three days a week. Misschiefs has so far in its five years of existence provided rent-free art studios to 45 selected womxn artists and featured over 150 womxn creatives through curated public events and exhibitions.

Misschiefs Takeover in Stockholm was born out of a desire to actively support womxn artists and designers acutely impacted by the economical repercussions of the covid crisis. Womxn artists everywhere are particularly vulnerable due to their independent status as creators and as womxn. Misschiefs is a feminist art project from the start aiming at empowering womxn artists, designers and curators. We envision and build Misschiefs as an active interdisciplinary platform, both digital and physical. As a new kind of bridge between the public and the real-life process of making art. We strive for more strategic urban visibility, for womxn artists to take up more space, everywhere.

over 100 womxn artists
and designers