Susanna Arwin

Susanna Arwin (born 1960) is a versatile Swedish artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, collage, and design, with deep roots in the tradition of craftsmanship. Raised in Växjö, she studied at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, an art school in Florence, Italy, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. These influences have shaped her unique expression, in which she often explores themes such as civil courage, everyday strength, and humanism through strong female figures.
Arwin is best known for her lifelong project Den svenska tanten (The Swedish Aunt), which began in 1995 and celebrates courageous women in their simple, unyielding lives. Iconic is the sculpture Med handväskan som vapen (With Her Handbag as a Weapon), inspired by a 1985 photograph of a woman striking neo-Nazis with her bag—a work that has become a symbol of resistance and empathy. Her sculptures are made of materials such as glass, porcelain, bronze, and concrete, often interactive and engaging, while her paintings on handmade linen paper are built up in layers like collages, where the mass itself becomes part of the narrative.
Since 2006, Arwin has been running workshops and creativity courses in her studio in Värmdö, where she shares her experimental techniques. She also designs rugs, light installations, and spatial environments for the public and private sectors, always with a blend of tradition and innovation. Arwin’s art challenges and moves us, reminding us that fashion is often hidden in the everyday – a timeless dialogue between the personal and the social.

“For me, being an ‘auntie’ has nothing to do with external attributes. It is a state of mind based on inner qualities such as security, fundamental simplicity, straightforwardness, moral courage, down-to-earthness, and an unaffected ordinariness. You could say that when you are an auntie, you are so ordinary that you become extraordinary…”
– Susanna Arwin.

Photographer: Ewa Stackelberg