Culture Night 2011 – Exhibition

September 25, 2011 in Art, Design Blog, In the Spotlight

During Culture Night (Kulturnatten) on the 24 of september I exhibited my artwork ‘Sweden Losing Faith’ as an installation. This art piece is not one of my latest work but probably one of my most important ones! It’s message will never go out of date. So this is one of the main reasons I wanted it to be exhibited on a important night the Norrköping Culture Night is. I’ve been looking for quite some time to find a perfect place to build up my installation. When I started to research places one of my top pics were the Public Library. It’s one of my favourite modern buildings in the city (drawn by Sten Samuelsson in 1968), and the country for that matter. I immediately fell in love with it’s exciting angles and especially it’s concrete walls (with wooden structre!) – In short a Perfect place to display a strong message. The installation became a beautiful display of contrasts and at first glance a hard hitting shout out. But in the long run a hopeful message …

Your thoughts
The beauty about this piece is that it’s not just one message. It’s what You see and feel. To me it says different things every time … What I thought was most interesting was to listen to your thoughts and reflections about the piece/installation. Here’s some thoughts;

– Swedish flag; Most visitors reacted on the swedish flag. Which is negatively associated with racism, within Sweden. A symbol that rarely no one dares to display except during correct holidays. We’re to affraid of being stamped as racists. This annoys and sadens …
– The cross is also a symbol that raises questions. Most people see it as it’s being taken down from the wall. We’re losing faith. Belief in general – in fellow man, in the world, in the church …
– Helping hand. There is hope in the world. We’re reaching out and helping in a better way today. Thanks to internet and the quick awareness …
– Losing belief. Material world. We don’t believe in a higher being. We’re materialists and believe in money and carriers ..
– Disturbance. The world is out of balance – we need to find ways to stabilize everything again.
– Satanic cross. Alot of evil is out there and the world is becoming a harder place to live in.

… What do you see!? Comment below. – *more thoughts will be posted* 

My thoughts
I chose to display 17 pieces of the lithograph. In the beginning correctly and strictly displayed showing off the immediate strong symbols, like; “the religious cross”, “the satanic cross”, “the swedish flag” and “the helping hand”. As you look to the right you can see how the order is breaking up, almost becoming chaotic and lost. In the end it’s kind of finding it’s way home and displaying how we’re trying to keep our faith. Whatever it is.

I thought the timing was just right – Lately it’s been happening alot of negative and freightening events around the globe, like;  terrosist attacks, racistic political parties making statements, starvation, war, economy crashes, plane crashes and so on. Big events that makes us question where we stand,  in faith and  in general.

Finally I’d like to say that I’m really glad about this exhibition and that it turned out so good, and that’s all thanks to the people who showed up and shared their thoughts – I had a lot of great talks. Thank You!

More info about the Culture Night/Kulturnatten;
Stadsbibliotekets program
Kulturnatten i Norrköping
Kulturnatten på Facebook

Interested in this piece? Make your orders through the PM online shop. 

ART, For a nicer tomorrow, Norrköping, Release/Exhibition