The Forumist, which is collaborating with Schweppes to celebrate the150th anniversary of their Iconic Tonic, has created three original cocktails based on the personalities of musicians Kleerup, Mapei and Linn Koch-Emmery, using a specific iconic tonic for each drink. Before trying these personalised beverages, it would help, of course, to get to know each of these creative individuals a little better by imbibing some words about them. The experiences of reading and tasting will help to give a clear sense of who the musicians truly are, in reverence to the artistic soul these three creators represent.

Mapei
Mapei, the Swedish-American singer known for her soulful sound, is interpreted in drink format as a refreshing yet sweet gin with iconic hibiscus tonic flavoured with raspberry, mint and pomegranate. The array of tastes in this otherwise classical concoction is quite fitting, since Mapei herself is a unique performer who can be simultaneously simplistic and diverse in her expression. Her music might take more than one sip to be grasped by the taste buds, but it might as easily slip down like a G&T Royale on a hot summer day. Maybe the various possibilities of reception to Mapei’s music comes from the way it’s created. “It’s all based on truths, things that have happened to me or others,” she says, when asked about how her experiences leak into her work. Her songs act as a means to process life, perhaps even to ease a burden. “You don’t know where to keep all your life events. They have to evaporate. You shouldn’t carry them around on your shoulders,” she says.

Describing herself as a “concrete rose”, Mapei certainly carries those experiences of hers with pride, blossoming in any environment and always remembering what made her bloom. “I am really hard working. Sometimes, I close my eyes to my frailty, to my sensitivity, even to my beauty because of my trying to grasp every opportunity to deliver. I stayed with my neighbour a lot when growing up. She was called Nana and was born in 1925 to African-American parents who had been enslaved. My mother worked two or three jobs her entire life. We are roses, diamonds, beautiful women who grow out of capitalism and society’s injustices, thanks to the dreams that water us.”

To fully revere the woman who shaped her, Mapei dedicates all of her music – if not all of her life – to her mother.
“I am an extension of her. Without her I simply wouldn’t be here. Now, when she is no longer in this world, her words echo louder and closer to the heart. She always gave me advice, and now I want to be a product of my mother’s good advice. I want to walk the path she wanted to see me take. My path. I want to feel good from what I do, in my body, soul and heart. Blood, sweat and tears have to lead to laughter, right?”

Watered by dreams, blood, sweat and tears, Mapei is nothing less than a flower that keeps on growing.

Mapei’s G&T Royale with Schweppes Tonic Hibiscus
The passionate energy of this poised and dedicated artist and the uniquely complex voice that she brings to her music are reflected by this cocktail’s rich combination of flavours of pomegranate, a hint of fresh mint, Schweppes Tonic Hibiscus, gin and a rich boost of bubbles.

Recipe:
5cl gin of choice
1cl raspberry liqueur
1tsp pomegranate syrup
Pomegranate arils
Mint sprig
Optional lemon twist
Schweppes Tonic Hibiscus
Champagne or Cava for the Royale version

Linn Koch-Emmery
Linn Koch-Emmery, an up-and-coming musician whose work has emerged from the Swedish underground music scene during recent years, is channelled through a salty tequila and iconic Twist of Lime tonic drink draped in various citrus juices and sweetened by agave syrup. In a way, the drink reflects the salted edges of her custom rock-filtered indie pop, exemplified perfectly in her newly released single ‘Hologram Love’, taken from her upcoming debut album, hopefully, due for release next year. The tune depicts the beautiful thought that something lost but meant to be, might return one day. This comforting idea is wrapped in a sound that effectively represents what guitar-driven pop music is in 2020, and probably what it will be for years to come. Equally representative of the zeitgeist is the background to Linn Koch-Emmery’s music. “My songs are mostly about personal nonsense and in some sense my personal shortcomings” Linn says. “My music is self-centred and personal. Where else does one get space to twist every parameter of one’s personality without seeming narcissistic? To me, songwriting is an alternative to keeping a journal or getting therapy. It’s an innocent form of self-medication.”

Emerging onto the scene four years ago with the hard-hitting single ‘Come Back’, Linn Koch-Emmery’s musical journey has taken her above the surface of the immediate underground, for example landing her support gigs for greats like Liam Gallagher, The Hives and Pussy Riot,
as well as European tours. Looking back, it seems like a tremendous change, but what has happened artistically between ‘Come Back’ and ‘Hologram Love’?

“I still write the music in the same way, at home with my guitar and my computer,” Linn says, “but I think it has become more dynamic and playful with time. I’m not the same person I was back then, I don’t listen to the same music, I don’t read the same books or watch the same things. I don’t care much for sticking to a strict sound – I still love the Pixies and all that, but I couldn’t care less if a middle-aged man in Gothenburg gets disappointed because there’s not enough guitar feedback on the new album.”

Obviously, Linn Koch-Emmery is the absolute symbol of the modern musician, an artistically self-aware individual who does what she does solely for her own purpose. It’s refreshing, it’s unfiltered, it’s 2020. Nothing encapsulates today’s individualistic landscape better than Linn’s words about the significance of her craft: “Music gives me a form of meaning in life, but for someone else that meaning might be fast cars or raising wiener dogs. I don’t believe you need to celebrate life, we haven’t chosen it. Sometimes life is the worst and sometimes it’s great. According to me, the strength of music is that it flaunts nuances of both.”

Linn Koch-Emmery’s Salty Tequila with Schweppes Tonic Twist of Lime.
This cocktail is a short, sharp, laid-back package, just like Linn’s music, complete with an edgy delivery; it’s rimmed with a personality that’s salty with a zesty hit of charisma and spice, boosted with Schweppes Tonic Twist of Lime, tequila and Yuzu Sake to capture the sheer drama of her creativity.

Recipe:
4cl tequila of choice
1cl Yuzu Sake
1cl fresh mandarin juice
1cl agave syrup
Pinch of salt
Schweppes Tonic Twist of Lime

Andreas Kleerup
Andreas Kleerup, known simply by his surname, is music. There is no better way of describing him. His essence, his core, his talk, his walk, his way – is music. Attempting to fully understand a human being so completely constituted by music is perhaps best done by listening
to his work, but The Forumist’s newly crafted Schweppes cocktail entitled Warm Embrace – put together with rum, iconic Pink Pepper tonic, chilli, Thai hot basil and more – makes a close interpretation of his personality. Kleerup is altogether a warm person, although somewhat complicated, inviting yet distant in an enigmatic way.

In fact, merely listening to Kleerup’s music might not explain his complexity for an untrained ear, since his musical DNA is composed of fragments of widely different influences. Having started as a drummer at a very young age, he has been bitten by the jazz bug, gathered the contagious melodies of his adolescent hard rock favourites, picked up the best aspects of his former collaborators Robyn and Teddybears, and combined it with his love for monotonous kraut rock – all of it laced together and gift-wrapped in perfectly smooth electronic pop albums such as his self-titled 2009 debut and the recently released follow-up 2. These two records made Kleerup famous as a producer, and he says he feels at times that he is wrongly labelled as “only” that. Seeing the bigger picture, grasping the entirety of the musical machinery driving Kleerup, the organic movements fuelling him by also being part of the more rock-oriented band
Me and My Army become apparent. Along with his current project, intriguingly character-breaking 90s-esque recordings bound for release during 2021, the less famous corners of Kleerup’s catalogue probably explains him better than anything.

“Music to me is being as honest as you can possibly be,” Kleerup says, after revealing his liking for literature but that he would never want to be a writer. “If you have the ability to describe human emotions, you should, and with a bit of luck other people might find themselves in your descriptions.”

In a certain way, this quote sums up the person that is Andreas Kleerup as well as the music that he makes. Complete honesty, portrayed through a cultural medium that inhabits every atom of his being, that is the warmth mentioned earlier. Many may try, but there might not be a better way of explaining Kleerup to the world.

Andreas Kleerup’s Warm Embrace with Schweppes Tonic Pink Pepper.
To match Andreas’s global multi-dimensional personality, which is as diverse as his musical engagements, we include a refreshing balance of sweet, tangy and bitter elements, invigorated
by Schweppes Tonic Pink Pepper, rum and red aperitif – all like the upbeat tones of his music.

Recipe:
3cl rum of choice
10 min chilli infusion optional
1.5cl passion fruit liqueur
1.5cl red aperitif
½ fresh squeezed lime
1 fresh passion fruit
Slice red chilli (heat optional)
Thai hot basil
Schweppes Tonic Pink Pepper

Team credits:
Photography by Ivan Nunez (black & white photos) and Schweppes (colour photos)
Styling by Hanna Kisch
Hair & make-up by Elvira Brandt
Words by Filip Lindström
Special thanks to Schweppes

Fashion credits:
Mapei wears:
Blouse by Sirloin, Pleather pants by BeWider, Heels by Acne Studios, Earrings, Necklace and Bigger ring by Avidue, Thinner rings by Felicia Svartling

Linn Koch-Emmery wears:
Leather Pants by Acne Studios, Knitted Sweater by Acne Studios, T-Shirt Linn’s own,
Bigger Earring by Avidue, Smaller Earring and Necklace Linn’s own, Rings by Felicia Svartling, Shoes Linn’s own

Andreas Kleerup wears:
Suit by Acne Studios, Elastic hair tie and Handkerchief Andreas’s own, Rings by Felicia Svartling, Boots Andreas’s own, Loafers by Myrqvist

Theresa Traore Dahlberg

It appears that you have assumed dual artistic identities as filmmaker and artist. Since the recent release of Ouaga Girls, which opened to great critical acclaim, you have been gaining renown as a filmmaker. Following your prior background in film, what was your experience of studying art at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm?
“Coming from a background in film, I used the time mainly to work with other materials. Although the process is different, it is my own thoughts, ideas, fears and wonders in the end. I was quite stressed in my final year, as it felt like time was running out while I still had so many ideas. Since I had worked a lot before going there, I knew that all the space, opportunities and brain capacity were a privilege that came with a due date.”

Tell us about the large-scale sculptural installation Copper and Cotton that you presented at the spring degree exhibition last year.
“It’s a 12-metre sculpture made out of leftover circuit cards in copper and wool spun by excluded women accused of witchery. My thoughts circled around the collective, such as collective exclusion, the power that can come out of people organising themselves and collective reflection. To me, the materials are seductive and their history touches upon subjects that integrate the past, present, local and global.”

The common denominator between your film works to date is that the narratives derive from places in Africa, while bringing the realities of female protagonists to the fore in light of the patriarchal expectations of women. Taxi Sister follows one of the very few female taxi drivers in Dakar, Senegal, and Ouaga Girls a group of female car-mechanic students in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Do stories come to you organically or do you set out to find poignant ones to tell?
“They come organically and usually reflect where I am at that point in my life. I never know what my next work will be, since I cannot predict the future. I just finished Ouaga Girls and The Ambassador’s Wife, and everyone is already asking me what my next film will be. I am aware that this would be a good time to dive into new ideas, but I don’t rush into things. When I know, I know, and I won’t have much of a choice but to
do it full-heartedly.”

You’ve described your personal experience filming The Ambassador’s Wife as “complex” based on the power structures and notions of post-colonialism omnipresent in the narrative. Looking back at it now, what are a few things that comes to mind that stayed with you after the project was completed.
It was interesting to hear and see in discussions after the film was completed how people had experienced completely different films. What you see, says a lot about what you don’t see.

What is in store for you in 2018?
“Ouaga Girls will be released in cinemas all over France this spring and will keep travelling the world for festival screenings. I just found out that I will exhibit new works – sculptures – at OFF Biennale Cairo, which I am greatly looking forward to!”

Liva Isakson Lundin

How would you reflect on your time since graduating from the Royal Institute of Art?
“After I graduated in spring 2016, I took some necessary time to think, sketch and find new materials and points of departures. I recently showed a group of sculptures with glass and silicone for the two-person exhibition Elaster. I am continuing to explore these two materials that have introduced me to new directions in my work. Glass has a stiff surface in contrast to the bendable steel that I am used to, resulting in a much more angular, almost graphical expression. Silicone allows me to work with transparency and depth with the help of colour. “Everything in production is much more complicated now, since I generally work with big sculptures and installations that are demanding in terms of space and materials. I am still figuring out how to work without the opportunities afforded to you at art school in terms of equipment and big studio rooms. However, I’ve got better at organising projects.”

There is an evident sense of physicality in most of your body of work to date. On that note, how would you describe your studio practice?
“I elaborate my ideas by working in parallel with sketches, experiments, models and writing. I follow all the clues I can find, letting the sculptures crystalise from the practical process. I try to keep an open mind all the time, since things that by coincidence happen on the side of the focus often lead to new projects. It is like a chain of reactions. “The components of my installations take turns shaping, stabilising and deforming each other, creating tense encounters that often relate to bodily experiences like weight, strength or balance. Working initially with steel, I realised how it has its own strength and will. I found a resistance to my sense of control over the sculpting process that intrigued me. I still work with it, both by itself and in combination with, for example, latex. Latex is an organic, very fragile-looking material that is super-elastic and strong. It is very different from steel, but both of these materials have a potential inherent movement that can be used to create tension.”

As a sculptor, what are your ideas on spatiality in the way you approach a room?
“I usually see my sculptures as something going on in, and interacting with, a room, rather than something merely on display. The exhibition can, for example, be a measurement of power between the room and the material, where I am letting the relationship between the two vary. It’s a situation that can shift between intimacy, control, reliability and daring. I want the insecurity from my experiment-based process to stay intact during an exhibition.
“When installing an artwork I also think a lot about how you can move in the room and what happens to the work when you do that. That movement can create new shapes, angles or reflections of importance. For me, the work is never finished until it has been installed somewhere. Sometimes the permanent parts of the room help maintain the shapes of the sculptures.”

What lies ahead for you in 2018?
“I am in full production mode for rgw Market Art Fair at Liljevalchs in Stockholm, where I will show with Wetterling Gallery. I am also working on a solo exhibition at Ahlbergshallen in Östersund that will open during spring.
“Later in the year, I will take part in an exhibition at Aguélimuseet in Sala, and I will start the fall with a solo exhibition at Wetterling Gallery. After that, I will go on a scholarship journey with the Royal Academy of Arts to Rome to get some new inspiration.”

Susanna Jablonski

Your presentation at the spring degree exhibition of the Royal Institute of Art last year was so delectable. In what was a giant space – Tomteboda, Stockholm’s former mail terminal – it appeared to confine a sculptural world of its own, coming across as a dense exhibition in a considerably small amount of space. How did you approach it?
“I like to let the space decide how, and sometimes what, I will show – to let the room make an impression on the work, as well as the work on the room. At Tomteboda, I wanted to use one of the tall, unfinished concrete walls by a restroom. I built a floor – a stage, you could say – mirroring the wall like a fold-down bed, in order to create a defined space for my sculptures. Some of them got to rest on the light fixtures, others climbed up the walls.”

As a sculptor, what is your studio process like?
“I have many processes going on simultaneously. A day could consist of casting in glass, testing asphalt samples, arranging found objects, editing sound or video, reading or making small clay sculptures. “These days I think a lot about entropy, geology, ghosts and super-slow movements. Also threshold moments and other in-betweens, different ways of mourning and making sense of the world. Most of my work comes to me in that moment when I’m about to wake up from a nap, when the furniture and sounds of the room blend with my dreams.”

Tell us more about the materials you work with.
“I work with substances that are at the limit of what they are capable of sustaining. I don’t think so much about how to use them in sculpture-making necessarily, but more about how they relate to my body, their surroundings, temperature and entropy, their origin and their role in written history and contemporary life.“When a form or substance stays in my mind for a long time, it usually makes its way into my studio and starts to exist, transform and blend with the other materials and narratives going on in there at the time. I usually work with materials that have some sort of pre-established value or function, or that are part of a larger system – often paper towels, glass or stone. And when I work with them I want the materials to shift slightly and start working together and create new ways of being experienced.”

With Slow Wave, your project with William Rickman, the breadth of your practice also extends to music. The sound is always so ethereal and evocative. Do you distinguish your sculptural and musical practices as vastly different ventures?
“I don’t distinguish anything that is or has been part of me as being very different from other parts, really. I tend to include everything in everything, you could say. Music is great for narratives and lately I’ve been making sound or music for my sculptures.”

Slow Wave has had a long-term collaboration with visual artist Santiago Mostyn, as seen in Mostyn’s video work Delay, presented at Moderna Museet in 2016. What is this collaborative process like?
“Santiago and I are usually very engaged in each other’s projects, and the collaboration with Slow Wave is an ongoing exchange of thoughts. With Delay, the song came first, but what inspired part of it was actually conversations on Skype with Santiago.

Lastly, what’s next for you in 2018?
“I’m working on an artistic research project called The Gender of Sound with one of my favourite artists, Cara Tolmie. The title comes from Anne Carson’s pivotal text of the same name and will culminate in a multifaceted music, art and performance event that presents some of our findings. I’m also preparing for two exhibitions that will take place later in the spring – one solo exhibition at Marabouparken, and another one at Erik Nordenhake Gallery, where Slow Wave has been invited by C-print as curators to exhibit in a gallery context for the first time.”

Lap-See Lam

​Your artistry appears notably informed by notions of diaspora and your cultural background. In particular, Chinese culinary establishments are brought to the forefront in a thought-provoking and beautiful way. What brings you to these restaurants in your art?
“My parents and grandmother owned a Chinese restaurant for 30 years, and besides them, one can track down our relatives through restaurants all over Sweden. My ambition has never been to write about the Cantonese migration in Sweden, but rather to use the notion of Chinese restaurants as an interface and a metaphor to approach certain questions.
“The Chinese restaurant is a trace of a wider global Chinese diaspora – a trace that is both something familiar in our cities, but at the same time holds the identity of ‘the oriental other’. The difference between the local guest and the ‘serving-other’ is a dichotomy that has been central to the creation of this type of business. As a second-generation Canto-Swede, I find myself navigating these cultural in-betweens, with access to both the internal and external gaze.”

With your art it’s as though we’re seeing something novel, perhaps due to the use of HD scanning and HD animation in storytelling, to its fullest potential beyond just aesthetical and technical value.
“I try to use the medium that has the potential to immediately reflect the core of the content. With Oriental Travesty I chose laser 3-D scanning, since I knew that this type of rendering, in contrast to a place that in general is considered outdated, would force the viewer to see it in a new light. The 3-D scanner collects huge amounts of point data in the distance between the scanner and object, and these create a three-dimensional surface. Applying a photo on the surface creates the illusion of a three-dimensional environment, a 3-D model. Therefore, the technique itself is based on the mathematics of distance, and reflects the sense of movement and displacement, which I wanted to access early in the process.”

​Mother’s Tongue, your recent collaborative art project with filmmaker Wingyee Wu, presents an app-based experience of visual storytelling. Apps as a platform for art still appear quite ahead of time. Tell us more about the project.
“Our choice to frame the work in an app follows the tradition of tourist-guide apps, where one is guided to discover famous or alternative stories of a city. We used this framework, but turned the gaze around – instead, the viewer is a tourist at the sites, guided by a perspective that has emerged into the shape of a subjective consciousness belonging to the Chinese restaurant, a ghost from the future. What happens if a place of projection suddenly looks back at us?
“We wanted to play with the linear time perspective. The first narrative takes place in the past on a site that once was a Chinese restaurant. The second story is one about a former owner that takes place in 2018, in a hybrid Chinese restaurant. The final story, of a grandmother at an old Chinese restaurant that looks like the first ones traditionally did, takes place in 2058. The voice-over narrative follows the logic from past to present, but is interrupted by the dramaturgy of the actual sites. In addition, the work is performed in real time, with your physical experience at the actual sites guided by the spectator from the future.”

​What’s in store for you in 2018?
“In March, Olle Norås and I will exhibit at Bonniers Konsthall as the recent recipients of the Maria Bonnier Dahlin award. Also, Wingyee Wu and I are developing Mother’s Tongue into a short film.”

Team credits
Words by Ashik Zaman
Photography by Ivan Nunez
Styling by Hilda Sandström
Hair and make up by Janina Granroth
Stylists assistant Katie-Ruby McLaughlin Robinson

Fashion credits
#1 Waistcoat by Acne Studios, shirt by Totême, trousers by Levi’s, shoes by Eytys
#5 Shirt by Acne Studios, jacket by BACK, jeans by Filippa K, Shoes by Ganni  and belt from Humana Second Hand
#9 Jacket by L’Homme Rouge, sweater by Acne Studios, shirt by Whyred, trousers
and shoes by Eytys
#13 Blazer by Rave Review, shirt by Hope, trousers by The Cords & Co, shoes by & Other Stories

Art credits
#2 White material (2017) by Theresa Traore Dahlberg
#3 The Ambassador’s Wife (16 minutes) by Theresa Traore Dahlberg
#4 Ouagadougou, copper and cotton (2017) by Theresa Traore Dahlberg
#6 Inwards (2016), steel and latex; photograph by Jean-Baptiste Béranger. Courtesy of Wetterling Gallery by Liva Isakson Lundin
#7 Stimuli (2016), spring steel and gelatin; photograph by Jean-Baptiste Béranger         Courtesy of Wetterling Gallery by Liva Isakson Lundin
#8 Peel, Shear, Tensile (2017), Silicone, glass and mdf; photograph by Liva Isakson Lundin by Liva Isakson Lundin
#10 Untitled (2017), Asphalt and cherry wood; Photograph by Santiago Mostyn by Susanna Jablonski
#11 Untitled (2017),Ceramic, polyester, ribbon, keys, marble, lavender, plastic bag, dried flowers, lampshade, stone, rubber, acorn, bean pod, jade and brass nails; Photograph by Santiago Mostyn by Susanna Jablonski
#12 Rebecka (2017),Glass and cobblestone; Photograph by Jean-Baptiste Béranger. All images courtesy of Most Ghosts Hold Grudges, Galleri Mejan, Stockholm 2017 by Susanna Jablonski
#14 Mother’s Tongue; photographs by Anna Drvnik by Lap-See Lam
#15 Mother’s Tongue; photographs by Anna Drvnik by Lap-See Lam
#16 Oriental Travesty; photograph by Jean-Baptiste Béranger by Lap-See Lam