- Domestic Violence
White Ikea furniture, flowers on the table, the picture on the wall, a cuckoo clock … a home that could be anywhere reduced to the most essential elements — and a breeding ground for terrible pain and suffering at the same time. In his work presented for the first time in Sweden, Markus Öhrn examines the banality and brutality of domestic violence without any dialogue.
Together with his artistic team he takes an expedition to the dark side of intimate relationship patterns, role models and gender stereotypes. Markus Öhrn worked with real statistics and based his work around cases of domestic violence that went to court. He used this material to develop a five-hour performance for two performers and a pianist.
- About Markus Öhrn
Markus Öhrn is a Swedish visual artist, born 1972. He graduated from the Masters of Fine Arts programme at Konstfack in Stockholm in 2008.
Markus Öhrn works with video, sound installations and performances. His installations have been presented both in Sweden and internationally in places like Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and Arsenal in Berlin.
In 2010, he directed his first theatre performance Conte d’Amour that was awarded the winner price at the Impulse Festival 2011 in Germany. Conte d’Amour was the first part of a trilogy that was followed by the performances We Love Africa and Africa Loves Us (2012), and Bis zum Tod (2014). The performances of this trilogy have been shown at festivals around the world like Theatertreffen Berlin, Wiener Festwochen, Festival d’Avignon, Festival Transamerique, Montreal and Theater Der Welt.
In 2015, Markus started to work with site specific performances in series. The first piece in this format was the Azdora project that he created for Santarcangelo Festival in Italy, where he formed a Black Metal/Noise band with housewives that performed for ten days in a row. Since then he has made an advent calendar for Volksbühne am Rosa – Luxemburg – Platz in Berlin, 24 different performances in 24 days in December 2015, and then the following up eleven day performance Wir sind die Guten, also at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg- Platz (2017). With Häusliche Gewalt, premiere at Wiener Festwochen in 2018, he was nominated for the category Spezialpreis at Austria’s theatre price Nestroy in November 2018.
Markus Öhrn has moved back to Sweden after 10 years in Berlin, and is now the artistic director of the Swedish group Institutet, he lives and works in Färila and Vitsaniemi.
- Credits
Director, Stage design, Concept: Markus Öhrn. With Jakob Öhrman, Janet Rothe. Pianist: Arno Waschk. Masks: Makode Linde. Co-production: Wiener Festwochen, Institutet, Wiesbaden Biennale. This guest performance is staged in cooperation between Markus Öhrn/Institutet, MDT and Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.
- Timetable
Markus Öhrn / INSTITUTET
Domestic Violence

Photo: Nurith Wagner Strauss

Photo: Nurith Wagner Strauss

Photo: Nurith Wagner Strauss

Photo: Nurith Wagner Strauss