Arvid Staaf

Disciplin: Fri konst

Stipendieår: 2026

Nominerande institution: Konstfack

Nomineringskommitté: Lina Selander, ProfessorCecilia Grönberg, ProfessorLisa Tan, ProfessorThomas Elovsson, Adj ProfessorMeriç Algün, LektorOlivia Plender, Lektor

Stipendiestiftelse: Jubelfonden

Arvid Staaf’s artworks comprise immersive installations, including large-scale sculpture, found objects and music that he composes himself. In his master’s exhibition at Galleri Konstfack, titled Alive Human Being (2026), he included a wide range of different objects and sculptures, some of which he makes out of materials that have been discarded, different kinds of trash including cardboard, rotten textiles, old photographs and other material which he finds; even roadkill, such as a dead badger that he came across at the side of a highway. By placing them in his installations he elevates things that have been overlooked, material culture that was once important to people but now considered rubbish, evidence of a life that mattered (whether human or animal). He acts like an archaeologist who literally comb through the rubbish heaps of the past to find objects that help them to piece together how past communities lived their lives, and what was important to them. Arvid engages in small acts of care, for things our society considers to be trash, arranged in his installations into some kind of strange order or disorder, thereby elevating these overlooked objects and asking the viewer to engage with them. In Arvid’s own words, “being alive is such a strange experience”, so he seeks connection and meaning via art and music. In his installations he attempts, in a deeply heartfelt manner, to understand how people create identity, a sense of belonging and community. Drawing on his own involvement with the heavy metal music and DIY punk scenes, he explores some of the overlaps between social movements, alternative religion and belief which can have both positive and negative outcomes. One part of his installation for Alive Human Being brings to mind an altar, which might have been assembled by some strange cult or occult group alienated from the norms of society. In a hand drawn diagram included in the exhibition he also references some of the more troubling sides of the 1960s counterculture with events such as the Hell’s Angels presence at the Altamont free music festival in California in 1969, linking these events to his hometown (a small city in Sweden), and the ripple effects on such a place of events happening elsewhere, such as the so called “summer of love”. Whereas the inclusion of a fanzine in the exhibition, which he made together with friends, points to the connection that can grow up between music fans from different cultures. Through such simple means as passing homemade photocopied publications between lovers of a particular genre or band, a practice which began in the 1980s, music crosses borders and fans in locations as far apart as South America, Europe and Asia can connect.