Art collective Skaparkollektivet Forma has created an installation to house 17,000 unique tiny artworks that represent migrants who were expected to be deported from Sweden.
Skaparkollektivet Forma designed the installation, called 17,000, after they learned that this was the number of unaccompanied adolescents that were planned to be deported from Sweden to Afghanistan.
The work, which was made in collaboration with over 1,500 artists and initially displayed at the Liljevalchs art gallery in Stockholm, has been shortlisted in the installation design category of this year's Dezeen Awards.
Skaparkollektivet Forma has created an installation made up of 17,000 tiny unique artworks
"In 2015, our small country received 23,500 unaccompanied Afghan minors. They were provided with housing and schools, joined football teams and were really taken care of," explained the collective. "But the Swedish government panicked and created a new law, deciding that 17,000 of them should be deported."
The small artworks represent those expected to be deported
The name of the installation refers to the number of unaccompanied minors with Afghan citizenship that the government was planning to deport.
According to the group, many of these adolescents had never even set foot in Afghanistan, having taken refuge in other countries before coming to Sweden, with others not being able to speak any Afghan languages.
The group found that although 6,500 of these minors were eventually...