I am Esmé – And I live in IKEA

She’s there, but you won’t find her

Esmé lives in IKEA. She moves unseen, leaving only traces behind. But something strange happens—the more you look, the more you start to see her.

A Story Unfolding in a Place of Order

What started as an experiment turned into a rare shift inside a global company. Esmé’s presence was first a mystery, then a conversation, and finally a shared reality.

Her intervention was subtle yet undeniable. From handwritten notes and small weck jars scattered through the store to a hidden video inside a drawer—each element invited visitors and employees alike to step out of their routine and into her world.

For months, Esmé wandered unseen through IKEA, testing the boundaries between fiction and reality, regulations and creativty.

But as Esmé won hearts, the impossible became reality. A fully furnished bedroom, created just for her by employees who had come to embrace her presence.

The Traces She Left Behind

Visitors could follow her journey on altered IKEA floor plans. They wrote her letters, leaving them at a designated desk. Some found forgotten objects on the parking lot, which she collected and preserved in jars—a quiet commentary on what is abandoned and what is kept.

One of her most striking interventions? Two IKEA Lack tables, deconstructed and stored inside 156 weck jars, forever preserved as a fragmented version of perfection.

A video hidden in a drawer

Hidden in a drawer, a video. The camera rolls from inside a cart. Esmé’s journey, from aisle to aisle.

Misplaced

A pan in a wrong room. Out of context, or exactly as intended?

Her desk

Quietly waiting. A single notebook, always closed - until now.

Her pages

Inside: pages marked by Esmé’s hand. Scattered thoughts, a looping signature. Clues?

Traces sealed in a jar

A car, its rear light shattered. The shard, found in the parking lot. Now sealed in a jar, alongside the photo she left behind.

Traces

More jars, carefully placed. Each one a fragment, each one a presence. IKEA, rearranged.

Esmé’s swing

High above the warehouse floor, an IKEA employee uses a lift to hang Esmé’s swing. In an unexpected gesture of involvement, staff went out of their way to support her presence. The swing, visible from the upper-floor windows, became a surreal marker of her quiet influence.

My workplace at IKEA

A private workroom. Unexpected access. A pass of trust — or infiltration?

Did She Ever Leave?

Esmé never truly left. Months later, her bedroom remained untouched. IKEA employees whispered about her, and traces of her journey still linger. She was fiction—yet she became real.

I am Esme – And I Live in IKEA, conversations, 15 installations,
3 video installations, about 170 weckjars, Esme’s journal, photo’s, altered IKEA floorplans