The 1945 marble sculpture of two drowned friends

In Stockholm, two figures of Ekeberg marble stand back to back. Their forms follow classical traditions. One woman rests a pot against her hip while the other smiles with her hands behind her head. The work is known as Systrarna.

Nils Sjögren accepted the commission in 1935. He initially planned to carve the goddess Venus, but his interest moved toward a somber event from 1911. In that year, two young women drowned in Hammarby Sjö. Archives from that era spoke of a friendship that was deeply intense. They had used hat veils to bind themselves together and placed stones in their bags to ensure they would sink as one.

Sjögren spent ten years completing this specific tribute. It is unclear if Sjögren chose to downplay the likely lesbian background of his motif by naming the work Systrarna. In the present, however, the sculpture has come to be noticed as a reminder of the great difficulties of previous times for people to live in a homosexual relationship. In 2007, Jorun Kugelberg wrapped the statue in fabric bands, and during a few days in the summer of 2008, both women were equipped with rainbow-colored synthetic pubic hair.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons