Medvarelser

A public art commission for Karlstad Kommun as a part of Sundsta Torg, 2026. The work consists of a site-specific permanent installation, centered in between lake Sundstatjärn and Sundsta public square. As a part of the process, the public was invited to a participatory process encouraging: presence, reflection and an extended identity towards the ecosystem of Sundstatjärn.

From a historical perspective, the green area of Sundstaparken has diminished as human presence and urban development have gradually expanded closer to Sundstatjärn. The main focus was on the ecosystem in the expanded field, not as a single, unified system, but through multiple perspectives.

“Who or what is granted audibility and visibility — and through which conditions or structures?

Where, precisely, does the boundary between “us” begin and end? “Medvarelser” emanates from the ecosystem of Sundstatjärn, where humans, pike, and cyanobacteria coexist within a shared yet often unnoticed environment. Situated between Sundsta Square and the tarn, the work delineates a site that foregrounds the multiple agents and assemblages constituting our living environment, as well as the interactions and symbiotic relations that both define our existence and are shaped by human action.

Each individual element carries a source of light that is cast onto the stones as darkness falls. These elements may be understood as drawing sustenance from the subterranean springs said to connect Sundstatjärn to the Klarälven River. The stones absorb rainwater, retain it temporarily, and release it through evaporation under the sun, returning it to the atmosphere — a cyclical movement linking the subterranean and the terrestrial. Over time, the reflective surfaces function as substrates for additional life forms, including lichens, mosses, and potentially algae. In this way, the work gestures toward the entanglement of human and nonhuman lives, emphasizing relationality even in contexts where social or spatial distances appear to increase.

The installation comprises (among other materials), sand-cast untreated aluminum,lacquered aluminium, photographs from a co-creative process with the cyanobacteria of Sundstatjärn, and found gneiss boulders from Värmlands Nysäter. Certain parts of the work will transform over time.