Swede Hollow

"Swede Hollow" is a ravine on the east side of St. Paul, Minnesota. Today, it is like a haunting former industrial site overtaken by nature with a bike path running through it.

But in the 1800s and early 1900s, more than a thousand new immigrants, mostly Swedes, once gathered in this makeshift city. Now, there is a renewed interest in its history and lost stories.

Informed by the novel Swede Hollow (Albert Bonniers 2016) by Ola Larsmo, Sweden’s leading historical revisionist author, Swede Hollow, the exhibition, combines black and white images from Larsmo’s book with text excerpts translated into English from Swedish for the very first time.

Larsmo introduces us to a fictitious motley crew of people who lived in Swede Hollow in the winter of 1897. The names and stories gain new life in his novel. Meet the Bear Family who came from Orebro fleeing a disaster; David Lundgren, a helpless Swede chasing a lost and hopeless love; and the orphans None from Dalarna, Sweden, seeking greater freedom and control over their own lives.