Sweden’s ‘Banksy Mouse,’ Anonymouse, unmasked after 9 years in the shadows

Category: (Self-Study) Human Interest

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After nine years scurrying in the shadows, the two-person Swedish street art collective known as “Anonymouse”—dubbed “Banksy Mouse” by Swedish media—has finally stepped out of the dark and into a museum exhibition.

The mystery began in late 2016 when miniature homes and businesses, all measuring well below knee height, began appearing on the streets of southern Sweden. It looked like a bunch of mice had opened a tiny restaurant named Il Topolino and neighboring nut delicatessen Noix de Vie, but there was no clue to who created it besides a signature from an anonymous artist group “Anonymouse.”

The original creation on Bergsgatan, a busy street in Malmö, quickly attracted attention and went viral, drawing crowds. The project was even featured on the popular U.S. TV show The Late Late Show with James Corden.

The two artists behind the whiskery art project stepped out of their anonymity earlier this year. Swedes Elin Westerholm and Lupus Nensén both work in show business, making props and sets for film and television.

“We’re building something for children,” says 42-year-old Nensén.

“Most of us have some kind of relationship to a world where mice live parallel to ours. If it’s The Rescuers or if it’s Rescue Rangers or Beatrix Potter or Astrid Lindgren, it exists in a variety of shapes around the world.”

On June 27, a selection of the duo’s creations has been put on display at the Skissernas Museum in Lund, a short trip from Malmö, to celebrate nine years of “mouse pranks and creativity.”

The duo says the idea for “Anonymouse” came during a trip to Paris in 2016.

Their first creation took six months to build, before they secretively installed it on Bergsgatan one cold, dark night.

“It’s amazing to see a 70-year-old come over with crutches, and people help them down and have a look,” says Nensén.

“It really does bring out the child in everyone.”

The following nine years saw more mouse homes and businesses appear in unexpected places: First in Sweden, then all over the world.

This article and video were provided by The Associated Press.

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[“Cicada Pharmacy” 2020 by Anonymouse, on display at Skissernas Museum]

[Elin Westerholm and Lupus Nensén, members of Anonymouse art collective, looking at “Cicada Pharmacy”]

Lupus Nensén (interview): “The sweet part is that we’re building something for children and most of us have some kind of relationship to a world where mice live parallel to ours. If it’s the Rescuers or if it’s the Rescue Rangers or Beatrix Potter or Astrid Lindgren, it exists in a variety of shapes around the world. And it’s also very easy to build miniatures, if you have limited space in your studio.”

[Street art installation by Anonymouse art collective]

[“Lindenkronan Newspaper” 2022 by Anonymouse]

[Westerholm and Nensén looking at “Lindenkronan Newspaper”]

Lupus Nensén (interview): “It’s amazing to see a 70-year-old come over there with the crutches and people help them down and have a look and their butt is up in the air. It really does bring out the child and everyone for it, and that’s been immensely rewarding.”

[“Ricotta Records” 2020 by Anonymouse]

[Westerholm and Nensén looking at “Ricotta Records”]

Lupus Nensén (interview): “All of it is playful and I do think if we just made quote-unquote fairy houses or if it was just cute then it wouldn’t have the same appeal. Now that there is kind of a popular culture or even a mirror into society of what we’re doing that brings another level into, especially for adults obviously, you can go, oh I recognize this, I can make a parallel to it from that.”

Elin Westerholm (interview): “And part of the game is taking something that’s a bit dumb really seriously.”

Lupus Nensén (interview):  “Yeah, we spent a lot of time coming up with mice and cheese puns over the years. A lot of time.”

[Skissernas Museum gallery and visitors]

[Visitors looking at Anonymouse archives, design sketches etc.]

[“Paw to Paw” by Anonymouse]

Emil Nilsson (interview): “I hope that the visitor gets an adventure in looking for these, because they are hidden, they are not in the common areas where you would expect an artwork. There’s one in the basement, one on a balcony, and so on. So, I hope they take away a sense of adventure when they entered the museum looking for these hidden miniature worlds. One thing when you talk about humour and so on, it’s true. And that’s, I think, the main aspect that many people talk about. There is a certain aspect of humour there. But one favourite piece of mine is the one that is the shelter. It’s called ‘Paw to Paw’. And it shows kind of another aspect of the Anonymouse collective. It’s kind of almost like a social message there, that even in the miniature world of cartoon mice, there is outcasts and homeless people.”

[“Hasselnotion Student’s House” 2020 by Anonymouse]

Elin Westerholm (interview): “It’s been nine years it’s time to end it. I think we wanted to do something else with it. This winter, we went to try to decide what we’re going to build this year and when we were out looking we decided that, no, I think it’s enough.”

Lupus Nensén (interview): “It becomes more and more difficult to try to find a new perspective of it and try to make it joyful because the whole project has been joyful from day one and once it stops doing that, then it’s time to pack it up.”

[“Hair & Furever” 2018 by Anonymouse]

Lupus Nensén (interview): “We can promise you there will never be a return to Anonymouse, because we’re not anonymous anymore. But will we never build anything small in a public area again? We never know.”

Elin Westerholm (interview): “We can’t promise anything.”

Lupus Nensén (interview): “I mean, we lied for nine years, so keep on lying.”

[Skissernas Museum exterior]

[Anonymouse logo on museum exterior]

[Visitor walking towards museum]

This script was provided by The Associated Press.