A Quiet Midsummer Eve

It's Midsummer Eve, and just like last summer there are still a lot of corona restrictions in place here, so no big gatherings allowed - which is otherwise very much part of our Midsummer Eve traditions in Sweden. (See for example my Midsummer Eve post from 2019, which in turn contains a link to 2014.)

The weather has been fine though - mostly sunny but without being too hot.

I went for a walk into town in the late morning - quite forgetting that I did same thing last year and found everything closed. (I had expected some shops to be open part of the day.) Well, never mind. The camera and I got a bit of exercise anyway.

 
At the Travel Center there is a new sculpture waiting to be officially uncovered on the 29th (Tuesday) when they city celebrates its 400th birthday. Again, they can't make a really big public event of it because of the corona restrictions. I'm not sure how they will go about it to avoid people gathering, though, as at some point someone will still have to pull some actual piece of string to unveil the sculpture...

Anyway I don't expect to be there myself when that happens, as my 2nd covid jab has been moved forward to the 28th (Monday). It will be good to get that over with, but based on my experiences of the first one, I'm not counting on Tuesday as a day to go walkabout, as I might then be feeling more like this...

(...Only probably not quite as flexible, as I recall that one of the worst initial side effects for me with the 1st jab was rather bad muscle pain the first couple of days...) Anyway, this is a sculpture that has previously been in one or two other places in the city, but that I now found to have been moved  to the place in front of the railway station.

In the river by the park, there is a "text installation" (in Swedish) saying "Borås 400 years and influential". There is a pun involved which might come through even in English but even more so in Swedish ('flyt' can refer to influential, flow and float)

 

Walking back home along the river I came across these two ducklings swimming. (Mum and dad and siblings weren't far away, but my camera focused on these two.)

Smoke, Sticks and the Sound of Stones...

 Remember the Curtain of the Sky from one of my previous Art Biennial posts? 

Sadly, that only got to stay up for about one week - then someone set fire to it... 😢 

All that remains is the blackened framework left empty in the middle of the bridge...

A new sculpture for the biennial also got broken and thrown into the river (I learned from the newspaper) - it was one I did not happen to find on my previous walks through the park, so have no photo of it. Possibly that one can perhaps be restored (?) But the curtain was unique as it was made from fabrics donated locally. 

The wooden "megaphone" in the river is still standing (or floating) , though, and this time I went out to it and too a photo from the inside as well:

It's got little lamps inside it, so one should probably also go and look at it at night. (As it doesn't get dark here until really late in summer, it's unlikely that I will, though.)

Looking up from inside it, there was nothing but BLUE to be seen this afternoon!
 

In another corner (or whatever) of the park, there are three smooth (but fake) boulders placed in a triangle - and making weird noises! While I still remember where to find the video editor on my computer, I decided to make another movie including the Sound:

 

 

Art is in the Air - II

 

Linking to Through My Lens # 292

Art is in the Air

 

Walking back downtown from the church and art museum (recent posts), I got a good view of art hanging in the air over this street. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the photos are all from a beach in some foreign country - I forget which.

 

 

Linking to: Weekend Street/Reflections

Turn on the Sound

Now I hope I've managed to convert my video from the Art Museum to "Blogger format" - with sound and all... (Thanks to Sandra for reminding me about the how-to procedure in a comment to yesterday's post!)

 

 

Would you like being alone in a big museum, with these sounds as your only company?? ;-)

More 'Deep Listening for Longing'

On 1 June, Sweden took a small step towards lifting some of the corona restrictions we've been living with for a while. So far, mostly to do with adjusting some rules about how many people may be allowed to participate at various kinds of events (depending on indoors vs outdoors, sitting vs standing, the size of the venue, etc etc). I haven't kept up with all the details, but for one thing I know that there have been no church services over the past year or so, as they count as public gatherings, and no public gatherings of more than 8 people have been allowed. But now up to 50 will be allowed in that context. 

Today, I decided to go and have a look at some of the indoors art involved in the ongoing Art Biennial (with the theme Deep Listening for Longing). 

Besides our Art Museum, I knew there were also supposed to be some art on display in the nearby church (the biggest church in Borås, from the early 1900s). I decided to go there first, as I recalled also seeing somewhere that there would be short "lunch concerts" there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But should it turn out that 50 other people had had the same idea, I could always just go across to the museum instead.

I arrived at the church around 11:45. There was exactly 1 other person inside when I entered - I think probably a church warden -  and she disappeared out of sight almost immediately. So I had the whole huge church all to myself.

The art on display for the biennial consisted of these mystic coloured "clouds" painted on glass (or perhaps plexiglass). How much you see of them varies with the light and from what angle you are looking at them - and I guess that is probably "the point" (?)

 

I sat down for a little while in "silent meditation", waiting to see if there was going to be any music. At 12:05 the church was still empty and silent, though, so I decided to leave - not really sure  I had got the concert dates right.

I went across to the Cultural Centre (besides the art museum, the building also houses library and theatre). On a wall outside there is a new mural. As the town is celebrating 400 years this year, I guess it's supposed to represent our history even if I wasn't able to make out all the details. (It started as a market town in the 1600s, later came industrialism etc.)

 
When I entered the art museum, another odd experience awaited me: it turned out that here too, I was the only visitor at the time. So was completely free to just wander around as I pleased. I know I've been "almost" alone in this museum a few times before; but with this exhibition it felt extra weird, as most of the various installations also involved sounds - which overlapped and followed you around from one hall to another. So while you were listening to one thing, you could also suddenly be hearing for example a creepy laugh coming from another room... A bit bit extra spooky when you're there all alone!

This (above) was one of the major sound installations. I tried to film a video of it with my camera, to include the sounds. But Blogger won't accept it and just now I can't remember how to adapt it to a format that will work. (I think I've done it before but I've so rarely worked with videos that I forget from one time to the next how to do it! If I figure it out -again- I'll post it some other time.) 

 Some other exhibitions one might also ponder about a long time without getting any wiser.

Looking out on the real world. (No idea what's in the bottles!)

One room had a theme focusing on women and housework.
 

This figurine is the size of classic ornaments of ballerinas and shepherdesses etc...

It may have been because I was all alone in the museum, but one thing that came to mind for me was that the experience of walking around this exhibition was not all that different from the internet - only "3D" and bigger!

And just as I often do when sitting at the computer, I also kept thinking that maybe I'll go back for a closer look at this or that "later". 

(As there is no entrance fee this summer, I very well might. But who knows...)

Megaphone

 

 

Another of the new BIG pieces for the Borås Art Biennial, which started this past weekend - a wooden pavilion on a platform in the river, entitled Megaphone. You are welcome to go out on it, and perhaps sit there and talk, it seems... Whether everyone will then also hear what you say, I don't know!!

Linking to

 Through My Lens 291

The Curtain of the Sky

Sunny today, and with the very worst of the tree pollen explosion hopefully over by now (?), I decided to go for a walk into town to check on how they were getting on with preparations for this summer's Art Biennial, which will be officially opened tomorrow. 

One of the installations already in place (and hard to miss!) was this one:

(Same curtain seen from the other side)

A brochure I got sent home informs me that this textile installation was made from blue clothes donated by people living here, and is supposed to connect to our town's history as a centre for textile industry and design. (I'm thinking the bigger pieces can hardly have been "clothes", but never mind...)

The Art Biennial, with the theme "Deep listening for longing" will be going on all summer, until the end of September. It will include both new and older works of art (and some sculptures relocated to new places). As I have no plans to go travelling this summer either, I'm looking forward to at least having this local event to explore (and blog about). 

Walking through the park today, I also could not resist snapping another photo of the blue horse and carriage - still together with the red tulips (cf a similar photo 11 days ago). (Spring this year really has been a very slow affair compared to most years, with all the spring flowers lasting a lot longer than normal!)

 

Linking to

Weekend Street/Reflections # 18