This is another image heavy one.

Honestly, I took these photos in June, but then I... procrastinated. But, here we are, at long last.

So, every other year there is an outdoors art exhibition in Örebro called OpenART that features artists both Swedish and from other parts of the world. It's sadly been shrinking, getting smaller and smaller each time. In 2024 it took me two trips to look at everything. This year I managed to catch almost everything in like... an hour and a half. It's a lot smaller now. Still spread out, so the only reason it took me that long is because I did a lot of walking.

I'm questioning the future of this exhibition partially because of this and because... The first shit I see is "oooh this is totally a critique of genAI but look at this cool genAI stuff in this room right here!" that frankly made me very unmotivated about seeing the rest of the exhibition. I'd already travelled to the city for it though, so I went ahead and looked at the rest, but I just... turned around and left that section. Fuck that bullshit.

Let's just... look at the non-garbage, shall we?

These two sculptures were made by artist Sanaz Hakimi. If I remember correctly they were my mum's favourites. I really like the second one. It kinda looks like it's playing peekaboo.

I was very much jumpscared by the first one of these. I found the sign before I found the art, but I did not expect it to be depicting people hanging off the building like that. The various sculptures were spread around the city a bit, though they kept close to the river. The one chilling on tires were in a garden connected to Hjalmar Bergman. They were made by an artist named Mark Jenkins.

Elephant made out of mirrors! And a hole that it wants to get through, but the hole is too small. Or is the elephant too big? On the ground it's written "What needs to be changed?" to make the elephant be able to get through the hole. It was made by the artist Gina Disobey.

An interactive one! Made by artsit José Luis Torres. It was a bit wobbly to walk on since it was on the river, but I was lucky to look at it while the doors were open. Apparently when my little brother checked it out they were closed. It's made out of wood and old doors and windows. I think you could hang out and read there, if you wanted to.

"Hands almost touching" was part of the description of this piece but to me their hands were more... reaching past each other tbh. Made me think of those wheels you can spin around on, I think they're used by circus artists? I haven't been to the circus since I was a child. Made by artist Christian Ristow.

This thing was massive. It's made by artist Kim Demåne and it's a creature and a bunch of buildings all at once. I really like the colours on it, they really popped.

These heads move around! Or well, up and down. It's also made by Christian Ristow, and when you pull one head up, the others move down. Kids especially seem to enjoy playing with it.

I enjoyed the contrast of something that's seen as so fancy broken on the ground. It was lit up too, to simulate fire. It was made by artist Johan Ibrahim Adam. It's supposed to aignal that even the powerful can be brought down and be vulnerable, the chandelier representing class (paraphrasing).

Lots of small sticks tied together with... they're called zip ties in English, aren't they? Not to be morbid, but I grew up with them being referred to as cat stranglers. They're colloquially called that, at least in my area of the country. Uh. Anyway. AppleDust also had fun checking the sculpture out. It was made by artist Masu.

This one has a lot of photos cus there's a lot of parts in it. And also because it's my favourite. I've always been fond of things where nature takes over what was human made. Abandoned houses that's getting slowly torn up by nature, old metal junk that's been overgrown by plants. Can I definitively say that it stems from this audio book we had on cassette tape where a criminal plants potatoes that break apart a plane runway? No. But it's not impossible that that's the origin of my fascination with it. Also, hey, look, berries are growing in one of them! It was made by artist Bahzad Sulaiman.

Oh no, Lucifer is drowning in the flowers! I'm sure he'll be fine (he is).

Let's not cry over spilt milk (sauce). Made by artist Doris Apelqvist.

This one's been destroyed twice so far and is currently undergoing repairs again. I think it's just too tempting to sit on it, even though it's not built for that. It's made by artist Lilith, and at three times throughout the summer it's apparently getting carried around by a procession while they perform opera (yeah, I can tell why the art piece is called "I am extreme"). I have not seen this (the procession) myself, but I'm going by what the sign next to it says.

It's a disassembled car, put up to remind you of a bug pinned to a board. Apparently it's a Volkswagen, but I don't know anything about cars. It's made by Rören/Johannessen.

So this is not a piece from this year's OpenArt, but one the city purchased after a previous year. There are two more popcorn, and a few kernels as well, that are regularly moved around the city. Right now they're close to the south train station.

They also bought a giant rubber duck made out of tires, but that one's being repaired right now. I hope they put it back on the same square where it's been living the last few years (just feels fitting to have them next to a fountain that's kind of pond-like, even if it's always broken). And that they allow people to climb it again, the last few months before they removed it you weren't allowed to (I've been up on it once, I don't want others to miss out on that, it's fun trying to find the best way to climb it).

Angel and Lucifer look so teeny tiny, ahhh. Cute.

Okay, those were not all pieces of art, it was maybe... half? But I'm gonna leave it here.