In 2019, the student collective Brown Island submitted a proposal to change the name of Konstfack's exhibition hall White Sea.

According to Brown Island, the plot was symbolic: the students felt like a brown island in a sea of ​​white middle-class students, and felt that the experience was enhanced by the name of the hall.

- The first thing you meet is when you step into Konstfack is this white sea, which is also called "White Sea".

There is a strong symbolism in it, says artist Cassandra Lorca Macchiavelli, a member of Brown Island.

Constructions and slogans

The collective has worked artistically with the White Sea in various ways, including through exhibitions and constructions where they wrote slogans on the walls and filled in cracks on the exhibition floor with bright pink paint.

Brown Island, which today consists of both current students and former students, claims that the name change was never a requirement without a proposal submitted to management.

After that, the principal Maria Lantz appointed a working group to combat structural racism at the school, and the name change has been included in the discussions.

Proposal: ceremony and memorial

According to internal documents that Dagens nyheter has read, the working group, which includes members from Brown Island, is now proposing that the White Sea should change its name to Havet.

During the process, the group proposes that members from Brown Island be involved and remunerated by the school.

It is proposed that the name change be ceremonial, and they want a bronze plaque to be displayed on site with information about the name change.

According to the group, changing names should be seen as a starting point for a process of change "towards a much broader and essential reorientation of Konstfack in general", writes Dagens Nyheter.

The proposal to change the name has aroused criticism, including from a professor at the school who believes that the name White Sea has nothing to do with racism and therefore should not be changed.

Even opinion journalists like Hynek Pallas have reacted and said that the name change is misdirected.

Other professors believe that the action should be interpreted as an artistic action to provoke debate on a larger issue of diversity and inclusion.

Wants to "decolonize the department"

In addition to the name change, the school is now working on several other points to counteract structural racism, writes DN.

The working group describes the item "Pedagogical tools" as most important in this work, and suggests, among other things, seminar days at the school.

They write:

 “All staff must be involved in a dialogue about institutional racism and prejudiced recruitment at Konstfack by using a decolonial, intersectional lens;

introduce the work from Våra rum-Our spaces, share Brown Island's text and other students' voices, activate the pedagogical tool and develop how staff can contribute to decolonising the department, ”it says in the proposal for a seminar day for staff.

(DN translation)