Insert Coin
Insert Coin is a handmade steel gum-ball machine. You put in a copper coin, turn the handle, hear the cogs turn. Something small drops into your hand. A tiny bear. A sticky hand. A ring. A thing you maybe had once, or maybe just wish you had.
The machine was made entirely by hand — welded, filed, stamped — and the coins were made the same way, letter by letter, from copper. Nothing about it is mass produced. Everything about it is meant to feel familiar anyway.
The work explores nostalgia. Not the kind where you remember something clearly, but the softer kind — a feeling without a clear source. The longing for a time you can barely picture. The objects inside the machine are pulled from that hazy place. They look like childhood. But they are made in steel, a material that is hard, serious and permanent. They will not break. They will not wear out. They will just sit there and look back at you.
The machine asks one simple question. What does it cost to feel like a kid again, just for a second?You don’t need to know anything about art to use it. You just need a coin. “
Swedish version of text