Market Art Fair

Splendid Silent Sun

Collaborations

Photo: Giulia Cairone

Exploring the transformation of a 1950s utopia and its connection to the vastness of time, space, and community.

Ahead of the fair in 2022, Market Art Fair, in collaboration with urban investor and change agent NREP, held an exhibition in Vällingby Centrum. Curated by Anne Vigeland and Elias Kautsky, the exhibition Splendid Silent Sun focused on Vällingby’s transformation and the ways it can be understood as a specific place within a vast universe.

The exhibition was part of NREP’s cultural focus at Vällingby, a project that creatively connects the community with the centre’s pioneering past. It used contemporary art, alongside the local community, to shape a vibrant place to live, work, and play.

“Since NREP was founded, we have continuously worked to improve the built environment for the benefit of our customers and the communities we serve. Art has the power to inspire and connect people, and we’re proud to be a partner of Market Art Fair – an event that celebrates and showcases the work of talented artists from different backgrounds and perspectives. By supporting this exhibition, we hope to contribute to the growth of the art scene and encourage more people to explore and appreciate the arts”, said Rickard Svensson-Dahlberg, co-founder of NREP.

NREP believes in the power of art and culture to add value to the built environment and support social wellbeing. Their goal for the recently acquired 1950s Vällingby Centrum showcases this ambition by placing art, culture, and design at its heart. This effort aims to reinvigorate the innovative architectural design and public realm artworks featured in the original 1950s concept of the site.

Until the early 1950s, Vällingby was largely unknown. A few farms and cottages lay scattered, inhabited by a modest population. Early settlements gave rise to the name “the people on the hill” (“folket på vallen”), which later became Vällingarnas by. These early residents, living off seasonal harvests, could hardly have known that, in a few hundred years, travelers from all over the world would visit Vällingby in order to study the utopic and celebrated model of the “ABC city”.

Vällingby’s transformation serves as the starting point for Splendid Silent Sun. The exhibition explores the relationships we form with our dwellings and how a subtle shift in perspective, or a single idea, can seem to alter a place for good. The exhibition, held in the heart of Vällingby Centrum, featured works by Karolina Brobäck, Berenike Corcuera, A K Dolven, Paul-Robin Sjöström, Lisa Tan, and Johan Thurfjell. Reflecting on the diverse range of works, the curators explained:

The artists in the exhibition demonstrate a wide variety of mediums and practices, but they all share an interest in history, fiction, scientific phenomena, and spirituality in relation to sites and places – with particular attention directed upwards, towards the sky and celestial bodies.

  • Elias Kautsky and Anne Vigeland. Photo: Erica Moon-Nam Lindberg.

Two public artworks, Flora and Fauna by Tilda Lovell and The Sun Dial by Sven Holmström and Ole Berg, were also incorporated into a geographic extension of the exhibition. This, the curators hoped, would encourage visitors to expand their awareness and imagination across history and space.

‘When we started working on this exhibition, we were interested in learning more about the history of Vällingby, including the 1950s utopian idea of the “ABC city.” The area first appeared in historical records in 1347 and was sparsely populated farmland for centuries before the explosive urban development that transformed it into a commercial suburb. We were intrigued by what such a drastic transformation does to a place – how its inhabitants and visitors think, feel, and identify with Vällingby and its surroundings.

  • Installation image, Paul-Robin Sjöström and Karolina Brobäck. Photo: Giulia Cairone
  • Karolina Brobäck. Photo: Giulia Cairone

As they prepared for the exhibition in Spring 2022, the curators shared their hopes and ambitions for what it could achieve:

‘We hope that the exhibition can encourage conversations on placemaking and what makes a site or an area ‘home’, and also how the local can be understood in relation to something much larger, like vast timeframes or other planets. We also hope the exhibition will resonate with the artistic initiatives and creative potential already present in Vällingby, as well as draw attention to the public art permanently installed in the area. We aim to spark discussions on the importance of art in any residential or commercial area – both through public installations and the development of artistic infrastructures, such as studios and exhibition spaces.’

‘The exhibition includes two public artworks in Vällingby Centrum – Flora and Fauna by Tilda Lovell, and The Sun Dial by Sven Holmström and Ole Berg. These works have been central to our exhibition research. We will be organising guided tours, including art walks in and around Vällingby, to local schools, cultural organisations, and workplaces.’

 

Credits and captions
This article was originally published in a newsletter in 2022 for Market Art Fair.