KVLT in Göteborg: the 2014 Svart Katt
Words and photos by Johan Björklund

Svart Katt is an alley cat race through the darkest corners of Göteborg where the riders look for as many checkpoints and solve questions scavenger hunt style with the help of a map and a manifest during the cold and dark night. You could say it’s a sightseeing tour in the twilight zone.

I did my first Svart Katt in 2012. As much as I enjoy black metal, I had never tried the art of applying corpse paint before and I had made a latex werewolf mask for a music video earlier a couple of years earlier that I still had, so I opted for an easy way out. Needless to say I saw pretty much nothing in the rainy pitch black night and I crashed on old rail road tracks after only a few kilometers. I made it to the finish on time, but I don’t think I’ve ever sweated that much before or after.

Two years after the latex werewolf incident I’m still not good at corpse paint, but I do it anyway. So this Saturday I rode the sixth and last chapter of the alley cat Svart Katt together with 90 other disguised cyclists wearing black through graveyards, churches and some of the shadier parts of central Göteborg. The theme of that last installation was suitably decay and the last stages of life. To quote mastermind organizer Kristian Hallberg he tried to create “a night to resemble a septic fever dream”. He did well.

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