Postcards from Gränby
Five signs placed in the fields and pastures surrounding Gränby Centre shopping mall, adjacent to one of Sweden’s oldest churches. The area was undergoing major redevelopment at the time of the installation.
Postcards from Gränby, which is the name of the piece, want to get your eyes to slow down and see the process underway in the area, which is under heavy development and commercialisation of a rate that might not only make us charmed by the desire to buy and hope for the future. Himmel och fält / Sky and field notes laconically a subtitle in front of, well, a sky and a field. Natur / Nature it says in front of a grove. Kulturbygd / Cultural heritage recites a banner in front of Vaksala Church, which during its nearly 1,000-year of age during a justifiable time has been an obvious focal point in the landscape. The flashy shopping centre that the big mall constitutes, you might say, has stolen the historic building’s position on the plain. Or inherited. The old stone body from the 1100s is of course, if you choose this perspective, part of the same human movement, the domestic annexation, as Gränby Centre is.
—Sebastian Johans, review in Upsala Nya Tidning, 2016
Part of the group exhibition The Clay is Moving curated by Anna Ehn
Postcards from Gränby
Five signs placed in the fields and pastures surrounding Gränby Centre shopping mall, adjacent to one of Sweden’s oldest churches. The area was undergoing major redevelopment at the time of the installation.
Postcards from Gränby, which is the name of the piece, want to get your eyes to slow down and see the process underway in the area, which is under heavy development and commercialisation of a rate that might not only make us charmed by the desire to buy and hope for the future. Himmel och fält / Sky and field notes laconically a subtitle in front of, well, a sky and a field. Natur / Nature it says in front of a grove. Kulturbygd / Cultural heritage recites a banner in front of Vaksala Church, which during its nearly 1,000-year of age during a justifiable time has been an obvious focal point in the landscape. The flashy shopping centre that the big mall constitutes, you might say, has stolen the historic building’s position on the plain. Or inherited. The old stone body from the 1100s is of course, if you choose this perspective, part of the same human movement, the domestic annexation, as Gränby Centre is.
—Sebastian Johans, review in Upsala Nya Tidning, 2016
Part of the group exhibition The Clay is Moving curated by Anna Ehn
