edition 4:
"THE LIMITS OF DARKNESS"
Arvika Light! this year will explore the “in-between zones,” both in the city and within ourselves. We invite the artists to weave in and out of shadow and light by artistically articulating the transitions between different worlds. In an increasingly polarizing world, the need for gray areas becomes even more important: Not to surrender to the black or white but instead to give space to all the nuances in between. For "The Limits of Darkness," we welcome 11 artists from Sweden, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Guided tours are arranged for visitors during the festival. Information about the artworks is available via the QR code next to the works and through flyers available in shops around town and at the Tourist Office.
"Forgotten Walls"
Light installation by Maaria Wirkkala – Finland
3 locations: – Östra Esplanaden 3
– Östra Torggatan 2
– Solbergsgränd 8
With the light artwork "Forgotten Walls," Maaria Wirkkala makes the insignificant noteworthy by pointing out forgotten surfaces in the urban space as darkness falls. With softly mixed colored light, she shapes areas that are not normally open to view, either due to their location or because they do not express themselves. Maaria Wirkkala's work aims to illuminate shadows, and by doing so, she establishes new relationships between people, places, and things. To see – to pay attention to something that one usually just passes by without noticing it.
www.maariawirkkala.com
"Doors to the Afterlife"
Light installation by Cecilia Ömalm – Sweden
3 locations: – Köpmangatan 2
- Storgatan 35a
- Kyrkogatan 39
Cecilia Ömalm works with cyan-blue electrical light thread to draw fictional portals that refer back to ancient Egyptian culture. Two worlds meet on the threshold of these doors which merge from two-dimensional drawings to the loft of three-dimensional spaces behind them. Time and timelessness are imagined through the oldest manifestations of culture where buildings and places of worship travel through history back into our own time.
https://omalm.com/
"Juhla”
Shadow installation by Simo Ripatti – Finland
Location: Fabriksgatan 30
Simo Ripatti is a Finnish visual artist whose work strives to subtly and unpretentiously frame subjects that are difficult to put into words. In "Juhla," Finnish for "Occasion," the shadow of a flag is projected onto a blind wall with a real flagpole placed in front of it. It is an unexpected and strange situation that causes the rational mind to pause. A certain situation has suddenly become different, while the work questions meaning, memory, and perception.
"Solid Void"
Light installation by Vendel & de Wolf – The Netherlands
Location: Storgatan 32
The Dutch collective Vendel & de Wolf creates immersive light installations to visually articulate the inherent beauty of the existing environment. They aim for plug-and-play installations with relatively simple and energy-efficient materials, which are executed with maximum effect. They are often inspired by phenomena of nature. For "Solid Void," it was the realization that on Earth, in an area the size of a fingernail, 65 billion neutrinos pass through our body every second. This idea led the artist duo to design an installation where blue light is woven in and out of spaces.
www.vendelendewolf.nl
"Help is on the Way"
Light sculpture by Lin de Mol – The Netherlands
- Järnsvägsgatan 36
Lin de Mol is a multimedia artist who works with sculpture, installation, and photography. She was born and educated in Amsterdam and has lived in Värmland since 2014. With her sculptural light installations, she creates high contrasts between darkness and light in the urban environment. On the border between nature and culture, her bright white objects evoke an emotional experience that refers to the vulnerability of modern man.
"The Soft Bit"
Film by Jana Irmert – Germany
Art Hall – Storgatan 22
Jana Irmert is a sound artist based in Berlin who only uses natural, self-recorded sounds which she later digitizes. She investigates the mood of materials and places, and thus bends contrasting sounds into soft atmospheric soundscapes. The focus of the film "The Soft Bit" is the entirely improvised performance by Tai Chi master Lingji Hon. Her hypnotizing presence holds the gaze while Irmert's atmospheric soundscape leads the viewer through an experimental montage in an extraterrestrial landscape.
www.janairmert.com
”Daydream"
Video installation by Jonas Gazell – Sweden
Location: Handverksgatan 3
Jonas Gazell is a multimedia artist residing in Värmland. In the work "Dagdröm," the passage of time is depicted as a TV program where the sun's rise and set takes no more than two minutes and shows only a brief moment of light in between.
In the second work, "Blanksliten," we see a cut-out figure contorting from the ocean waves washing over him. Between the elements of the sea, the figure is constantly worn down and becomes part of a larger whole.
www.jonasgazell.com
"Blank slate"
Video installation by Jonas Gazell – Sweden
Location: Kyrkogatan 28
”Parasite Geometry”
Alabaster light sculpture by Lin de Mol – The Netherlands
- Kyrkogatan 33
"Pergola"
LED light installation by Simon Hagegård & Ivan Wahren – Sweden
Location: Pergola City Park
Simon Hagegård and Ivan Wahren are a light designer/light art duo from Stockholm and Arvika, who work interdisciplinarily as architecture, stage light, and light art designers. In the work "Pergola," slow dynamic transitions in white and blue-green colors travel through Arvika Park's historic pergola, creating a constantly changing promenade that plays with perception and angles, highlighting the existing space and presenting it in new forms."
www.instagram.com/ivan_wahren
"I need you forever and ever"
Installation by Katrin Westman – Sweden
Location: Kyrkogatan 42
Katrin Westman is a visual artist based in Värmland who explores the meeting between painting and sculpture. "I need you forever and always" is a fragmented painting that floats in a construction whose threads hold everything together. The interaction between the floating painting and its shadows aims to be a declaration of love for the fluidity of creation and the liberation of a painting.
katrinwestman.se
"Seascapes"
Window installation by Tomasz Sekular – Finland
Location: Storgatan 21B
Tomasz Sekular is a Helsinki-based visual artist who works with installation art, photography, and film. In his installations, cinematic storytelling and a blur of space, time, and perception meet in strange constellations.
In the work "Seascapes," based on the paintings of William Turner, he invites the viewer to participate by appealing to the senses while experimenting with an atmospheric space in the public realm.
https://luxhelsinki.fi/sv/event/lux-in-2/
Arvika Light! 2023 was sponsored by:
