Swedish reviewers have tended to characterise Strömquist's comics as ‘genusvetenskap i serieform’, referring to the overtly pedagogical orientation of her work. Strömquist's comics are filled with footnotes and references to academic sources that function to legitimate the author's discussions of cultural history and gender studies. The comics collected in Kunskapens frukt can be described as an extended consideration of the representation of female sexuality and female-gendered bodies in the history of science and culture. Liv Strömquist, ‘Blood Mountain’, Kunskapens frukt (2014), splash page.Ĭitation: European Comic Art 13, 1 10.3167/eca.2020.130104 1), was included separately in a gallery exhibition, one visitor was reported to have ‘svimmat på grund av äckelkänslor’.

2 When one image from Kunskapens frukt, Isprinsessa, depicting an ice skater with visible menstrual bleeding ( Fig.

Considered shocking for its images of menstruating women, the installation prompted the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing populist party, to call for the replacement of Strömquist's publically funded menstrual art by twentieth-century Swedish landscape paintings.

The project, titled The Night Garden (2018–2019), drew from drawings and illustrations originally published in the author's previous books, including Kunskapens frukt, along with original work for the installation. 1 During the same year, Strömquist garnered headlines in international media for a public art installation exhibiting her comics in Stockholm's Slussen metro station. The Patriarchy (2018, first published in Swedish as Kunskapens frukt, 2014) marks the introduction of Strömquist's work for English-speaking readers in book-length format. Although Strömquist's comics have been translated and published in numerous languages, the English publication of Fruit of Knowledge: The Vulva vs. Strömquist's comics have won prestigious literary awards, and she has been a regular contributor on Swedish radio, television and several podcasts. Swedish artist Liv Strömquist has been at the centre of an explosion of feminist and left-wing political comics in Sweden since the early 2000s.

Kunskapens frukt by Liv Strömquist