Category Insight

We are all aware of the millions of possibilities that the internet has opened for us. And with possibilities, ideas are created. Ideas that are meant to ease and improve our lives. In many ways it does. But cynical as I am, I can´t just see the benefits only. 

Our friend Colin Drummond, Director of Cultural & Business Insights at Crispin Porter + Bogusky Group, explains on justin.tv why culture is so important in the creative work at the agency. Colin embraces the mishmash of planners, sociologists, journalists and anthropologists and their different framewoks to look upon culture. Is it possible to change culture?

The question we answered: What will happen with the brand Saab if Koenigsegg becomes the new owner? Published in Sydsvenskan 2009-08-19

I have been co-writing an article with Kristina Börjesson, a PhD and Research Associate at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, on the topic of “Sustainable revitalization of places.” It has again forced me to really contemplate the concept of social sustainability and society planning.

This quote from Michel Foucault is worth considering while you rest in the hammock:

Interpretation can never be brought to an end, simply because there is nothing to interpret. There is nothing absolutely primary to be interpreted, since fundamentally, everything is already interpretation; every sign is, in itself, not the thing susceptible to interpretation but the interpretation of other signs.

The eating in Barcelona takes place everywhere. There are several “food holes” in the city. It doesn’t seem to bother people to eat in strange food surroundings, with the traffic near by. The food experience, the scent, the taste, overcomes most things!

At the party, the food is eaten and the kids are occupied with something..

Two current events have made us revisit the theme of street corner culture. One of them is the never-ending fireriots in Rosengård, the other is a recent gathering held with some of our younger informants. It’s very obvious that street corner culture amongst the younger is a symptom of a social exclusion that is two folded. Firstly, and probably foremost, it deals with the socioeconomic situation which encompass neighborhoods suffering from different forms of deprivation which lead to a notion of powerlessness. Secondly, there is an enormous lack of “things to do” and “places to go” when you are in the in-between age of 15-17 years old. This culture of “att tugga” (that is standing doing nothing and talking about whatever) is not all bad though; it’s far from everyone that is up to mischievous acts. And when listening conversations, subjects and the way things are said, it´s not surprising that hip hop and rap is born in these corners. The danger whit this sort of leisure career though is when the depravation gets idealized to the point where you just don’t care anymore. Or as Anna, 18 years old said: “A lot of the young kids hanging in street corners seem to lack the ability of seeing the connection between cause and effect. Or maybe they just don’t care.” 

Rosengård on fire. Photo by Simeon Ogén. Scanpix. Taken from tv4.

Driving around in Mauritius, suddenly, in the green wild, a shopping mall. It was a somehow unreal feeling walking around in the mall. It was silent, empty and out of it’s cultural context. I went back several times to see if the emptiness only was a coincidence with my first visit, but no. The lines of cashier just sitting with almost nothing to do, the overfilled shelves, the lonely woman walking around.

The local market a few miles away was overfilled, with people and goods. I ask one woman why she was speding time at the local market instead of the mall, she answered: “Because the fresh and cold feeling at the mall, the cleaness and the perfection makes me so unhappy. All the joy with food is gone. The smell and texture is not there. It’s not food.”