Mini creations by ‘Anonymouse' Swedish artists finally go from street to museum

Gulf Today

01-07-2025

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 a neighbouring nut delicatessen 'Noix de Vie.' There was no clue as to who created them besides a signature from anonymous artist group 'Anonymouse.'
The following years saw more mouse homes and businesses appear in unexpected places: First in Sweden, then all over the world from the UK to Canada.
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 US 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. 'The sweet part is that we're building something for children. Most of us have some kind of relationship to a world where mice live parallel to ours,' said Nensén, citing numerous child-focused fairy tales.
'Ricotta Records' 2020 by Anonymouse on display at Skissernas Museum in Lund, southern Sweden. Associated Press
On Friday, a selection of the duo's creations went on display at the Skissernas Museum in Lund, a short trip from Malmö, to celebrate nine years of 'mouse pranks and creativity.' In the spring of 2025, creators Elin Westerholm and Lupus Nensén stepped out of anonymity and at the same time announced that the mice's building adventures were over. Now Skissernas Museum is celebrating nine years of mouse pranks and creativity. This summer, Anonymouse is moving into the museum's exhibition rooms with a selection of their miniature worlds from Malmö and Lund, hidden here and there for you to discover. Additionally, sketches and preparatory works from the mice's archives will be displayed.
The duo say the idea for 'Anonymouse' came during a trip to Paris in 2016. Sitting in the French capital's Montmartre district, they soaked up Art Nouveau influences. Their first creation took six months to build, before they secretively installed it on Bergsgatan one cold, dark night.
'Lindenkronan Newspaper' 2022 by Anonymouse on display.
Associated Press
'It's amazing to see a 70-year-old come over with crutches, and people help them down and have a look,' said Nensén. 'It really does bring out the child in everyone.' The artists have since created a mini pharmacy in the Swedish city of Lund, a pastry shop near Stockholm, a castle on the Isle of Man, and a radio studio in Quebec, Canada. The duo created between two and three projects a year. Record store 'Ricotta Records,' which the pair installed in Lund in 2020, features tiny, mouse-sized record covers, such as 'Back to Brie' by Amy Winemouse and 'Goodbye Yellow Cheese Roll' by Stilton John.
Westerholm said 'part of the game is taking something that's a bit dumb really seriously.' 'We spent a lot of time coming up with mice and cheese puns over the years,' Nensén said.
The museum's exhibit rooms host six miniature worlds, once secretly installed on nearby Swedish streets, as well as sketches and preparatory works from the archives. The exhibit will run until late August. 'They are hidden, they are not in common areas where you would expect an artwork. There's one in the basement, one on a balcony, and so on,' exhibit curator Emil Nilsson said.
Elin Westerholm (left) and Lupus Nensen look at an installation at an exhibition of the duo's work in Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden. Reuters
'I hope (visitors) take away a sense of adventure when they enter the museum looking for these hidden miniature worlds.' After revealing their identities earlier this year, Westerholm and Nensén announced their mouse building adventures were over, bringing an end to the viral street art project. 'It's been nine years,' said Westerholm. 'It's time to end it, I think.' Anonymouse won't return. But will the duo never build anything small in a public place again? 'We never know, we can't promise anything,' Westerholm said.
Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art is a unique art museum that focuses on the artistic creative process. It features the world's largest collection of sketches, models and preparatory work for Swedish and international public art. The large exhibition rooms hold modern and contemporary art — from small pencil drawings to colourful, monumental paintings and large-scale plaster sculptures. There are sketches by international artists such as Henri Matisse, Sonia Delaunay, Henry Moore and Fernand Léger, and one of Europe's foremost collections of sketches by Mexican monumental painters such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Elin Westerholm (left) and Lupus Nensén, members of Anonymouse art collective, pose for a photo at Skissernas Museum in Lund, southern Sweden, on Friday.
The Swedish Gallery exhibits works by Sigrid Hjertén, Isaac Grünewald and Siri Derkert and contemporary artists such as Linn Fernström, Gerhard Nordström and Matthias van Arkel. In addition to the permanent exhibitions, the museum presents a series of new temporary exhibitions every year, featuring both contemporary and earlier artists. In addition, a rich and varied program is on offer for children, teens and adults with guided tours, artists' talks, lectures, concerts, performances, creative workshops and much more. The museum also has an extensive image and clip archives on public art from Swedish and international newspapers and magazines from the 1930s until today.
Agencies