Nils Taki Claesson (born 6 September 1958) is a Swedish artist, director, author and artistic researcher. He is currently assistant professor at the Stockholm University of the Arts.
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Biography
Claesson received his PhD in fine arts from the Film and Media Department at Stockholm University of the Arts with the dissertation The Ghost Machine: Seven changes and transitions – animation processes in animated film.
Claesson joined the newspaper ETC 1979–1984, where he was a co-owner for a while. He had acting roles in two films in the 1980s, among other things in Stig Larsson's film Ängel, but he has mainly directed, written manuscript and worked with animated films and radio documentaries. He has been working with digital media since the mid-1990s, and has played a central role in the development of Swedish digital art through his work for the artistic creative space for art and computing (CRAC), where he was chairman from 2002 to 2005. In connection with this, he established a broad international network, and organized international exhibitions such as "Money, a comment on the new economy", as well as seminars and exchange projects with other media labs in Europe. He also led the network for media labs in Norway, Pnek 2001–2002, and was one of the artists behind the Association for Temporary Art [a: t] a platform for art online (1997–2007). He has also been active in the artist-driven galleries Tegen2 and ID:I gallery. Claesson has exhibited extensively in Sweden and Europe.
The book The Blueberry Machine, published 2009, is about his father Stig Claesson.
Selected works (2019–2025)
Claesson has produced a wide range of works in recent years, including films, books, and exhibitions, often exploring themes of memory, social change, and urban space.
2019: Valentina Dobrova's Life, a documentary project in collaboration with Denis Romanovski. Exhibited at TEGEN2 and Konstepidemin in Gothenburg.
2020:Texter som ingen läser ("Texts No One Reads") – a book published by Förlag Ruin. Read online
Peering intoo the Black Box – six-channel video installation, solo exhibition at Galleri TEGEN2. DN review
2021: Group exhibition: Work, Life, and Love at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Work: Black Painting – White Painting. Curated by Sara Arrhenius.
2022: Co-editor of the book After Work, on artistic research and the meaning of labor. Source
2023: Art Takes a Time Out – Five Seconds for Justice, at TEGEN2
Five Buckets of Potatoes, shown at Supermarket Art Fair
2024:
An Island – video installation exhibited in Nutopia in Stockholm. DN review
Ro en ko ("Row a Cow") – short film in the exhibition Islands at Galleri Verkligheten, Umeå. Exhibition VK review
2025: An Artist Must Not Be Too Molded – film premiere at Konsthändelse 2025 in Stockholm.
Curatorial work
Claesson has curated several exhibitions at **Galleri TEGEN2** in Stockholm and developed the visual arts program at **ETC Solar Park** in Katrineholm, including four summer exhibitions and a student project.
ETC Solar Park (Katrineholm)
2021: The Borderless Wild Boar (Carl Johan Erikson and Karin Willén)
2022: Move Mountains (Lars Bergström, Mats Bigert, Hannah Ljung, Tina Nyqvist)
2023: First There Was Darkness (Takao Momiyama, Gunnel Pettersson, Nisse Bergman)
2025: Blue Blood (Alexander Mood)
Student exhibition: Awesome Ararat Source
Galleri TEGEN2 (Stockholm)
2022: Animate or Die (Assar Tallinger, Sarah Gampel, Emma Hjelm)
2023: Red Lines (Elin Wikström and Denis Romanovski) – Source
Academic publications
A selection of Claesson's academic publications are available in the DiVA research portal:
Texter som ingen läser (2020) – Full text
After Work (2022), ed. Nils Claesson, Karin Hansson, Georg Kentros – Source
See full list: https://www.uniarts.se/english/people/phd-students/nils-claesson
Radio and film
Directing
2016 Love and solidarity
2012 sliN
2006 Snow – from the white you remember
1998 The little horror movie package
1995 Chameleon
1995 People's movies
1995 The world's longest Christmas Eve
1994 Three minutes each summer
1993 Moon face
1986 Man who shaves at Seine
1984 The one looking away is a rat
Manuscripts
2006 Snow – from the white you remember
1995 Chameleon
1993 Moon face
Roles
1989 Angel
1987 The Awakening
Books, book chapters and articles
2017 Seven changes and transitions – artistic processeses in animated movies
2016 We are not yet seeing the results of artistic research
2014 When photographs were pictures, not art
2013 The lab: 12 voices about laboratories and libraries
2012 sliN, Performing the Common
2012 The road to Husby
2012 Introduction to the animated moving image
2009 The blueberry machine
2002 Money
1998 The family and everything about the meaning of life
1985 I and Angela Davis
Art projects
2018 You have no choice
2018 Books no one reads
2015 Lost and found in translation
2016 A train to Spain
2013 The Shadow machine
2012 sliN, Performing the common
2009 The Contract
2007 Body in the net
2007 SWIZHE
2006 Video-Dnevnik
2006 Re-approaching new media, Ram 7
2005 Re:production
2005 40 years of victory
2004 Solidarity without heroes
2002 The Pudas Box
2002 Money, an exhibition about the new economy
2001 The Public Opinion
2000 The Art of organising
2000 The Minsk connection
2000 Speak to Ingmar
1998 "Say Voff"
1998 Time Viewers
1998 Travel to countries that are no longer available
1998 Opens in a thousand years – a message to the future from Vallhornsgatan in Rågsved, Port