On the first of July, we launched a fictitious company called Persondesign. The company was presented as authentic, but it is part of an art project by Reich-Szyber. Important starting points for the project were our own encounters with beggars and the simplifications in the on-going debate. We wanted to highlight the issue. And the people.

The business idea behind the company Persondesign was to remove the disgraceful aura from begging and making it into a job as others, while the company would make a profit. Through advertisements, including the newspapers Metro and Situation Stockholm (a monthly magazine sold by the homeless), people where sought out who were prepared to beg for something they considered necessary (or wanted to give to others). The salary was 100 SEK per hour and in addition the beggar could keep half of what was received while begging. The other half went to the Persondesign. With these conditions we arranged Beggar Saturday, August 25th at the lower part of Drottninggatan in central Stockholm, between 11am to 3pm.

For an account of the main results aswell as indepth info  – please go to  Beggars Saturday/Persondesign in Portfolio, where you will also find the background to why we created the project

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