Of mice and men

This collective of artists — AnonyMouse — based out of Mamlo, Sweden, has taken to creating mini installments of shops and restaurants for mice along the city’s streets

As kids, we all imagine an alternative world inhabited perhaps by little Lilliputs, or talking animals. Cartoons and Disney movies have perpetuated this idea and now, an anonymous collective of artists in Sweden is taking it a step further by creating mini-instalments of shops and restaurants along city streets for people to bring their pet mice. Called AnonyMouse, the collective has gained international fame and has over 121,000 followers on Instagram. When they began however, they had no idea how popular the instalments would become.

Indeed, Banksy’s lesser-known cousins say that the first instalment was just done on a whim, “We, AnonyMouse, placed a small scene consisting of a nut shop, Noix de Vie, and an Italian bistro, Il Topolino, on the corner of Bergsgatan and  Almbacksgatan in the town of Malmö of southern Sweden. We were hoping that pedestrians walking by would find it charming,” explains AnonyMouse. Indeed, the response that they received was completely unexpected. “We started in the hopes that at least some locals would notice it and that it would make them smile. But after less then 24 hours a newspaper had written an article about it and things snowballed from there. The people of Malmö seem to have taken it to their hearts. Almost immediately miniature things started to show up on the scene — club posters, cheeses, all kinds of plastic animals and much more. Some even bring their pet rodents there,” laugh the artists.

The tiny shops are built mostly from scrap metal and other recycled products including wire, tin cans, matches and Italian stamps. “We started with our first instalment in March, and have continued to work on it occasionally. There has been quite a lot of gluing, patination, hammering, painting and soldering going on,” recall one of the artists.

Since then, a number of mouse-sized installations have been in the works. Though the artistes plan to stretch the boundaries of their imagination with each installation, they try to keep a few things constant. “Since we are doing this partly to improve the ambience of a place, the instalments are usually not placed in swanky neighbourhoods. In fact, we almost always try to keep them close to kindergartens, so that a lot of kids can see them,” they maintain.

Even as the mouse shops gained the attention of the European media, the group decided to strictly maintain their anonymity, their only calling card being the part V for Vendetta, part Mickey Mouse logo. “We do not have any connection to the hacker group Anonymous, but there is an ever so slight kinship in the sense that what we do — attributing to the city without permit — could also be considered an act of defiance. Also, AnonyMouse is quite a good name, so if we revealed who we are, then we’d have to change it,” the artists clarify, and are quick to add that, despite being great animal lovers, none of them have owned pets. “It has less to do with mice per se, and more to do with the miniature fantasy world that we are trying to inculcate into the urban scenery. Still, many people have brought their pet mice and even hamsters to the shops,” they add.

Of course, this plan to maintain the intrigue of anonymity meant that a lot of covert artwork operations followed. The scenes are therefore built in the artists’ studios and then moved to the streets early in the morning or in the middle of the night. “We usually scout the location beforehand, and things are made to a specific measure and then placed in a matter of minutes,” say the AnonyMouse artists.

While the group laments the fact that their present installation in Malmö may have to be taken down because the harsh weather may cause too much wear and tear in the miniature interiors of the shop, they have big plans for the future. “We had so much fun constructing this and we are already working on the next one. We’d like to focus on Malmö for the time being but are also open to the idea of venturing out to the world with our scenes,” they sign off.