The stuffed whale at the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg is like Woodstock Festival: 500 000 people were there in reality but in retrospect seven million people also claim to have attended. In the same way every single person you meet who grew up in Gothenburg says that they, at some time when there were young, were in the whale and even had a snack. It’s not consistent with the truth. In fact, only a few percent have been inside the whale eating a cinnamon bun and drinking a Loranga. The rest of them are liars who have heard someone else tell the story and then made it their own.

Text: Navid Modiri