Frihamnstorget: Lift-off on Saturday!

At Blivande, we are currently building Frihamnstorget (excuse the funny, slick but over-the-top and whimsical rendering). A first iteration needs to be ready on Saturday when the port turns 100 years old, inviting the city for a day of activities where our new public square will play a central role. For that purpose, we’re putting up a large dome in the middle of the square as seen in this video, which will not be permanent.

Frihamnstorget is a meeting place for grassroots art, crafts, creativity, events, and culture. Stockholm deserves a meeting place which is built by and for artists and makers, but it’s really lacking in that department. We’re very inspired by Institute for X in Aarhus, and we’re lucky to have one of the guys from X join us for the build.

All containers are old and worn, and many of them would have been scrapped if we hadn’t bought them at a very low price. Our total budget for creating this public square, including a rudimentary café, a terrace garden and an art exhibition space is only around 10,000 EUR. For the first year, the rent is covered through a project with the port, and in the following years, we are planning to have the square pay for itself by renting out containers to artists and businesses that are aligned with the purpose, as well as events.

Our garden at the top of the tower will be designed by @jakobskote who is also the main architect and project lead for Frihamnstorget. I hope it’s the first of many green projects at Frihamnstorget, which I think has quite some solarpunk potential.

On top of the containers, we want to place sculptures as if you were in a modern 360-degree pantheon. Our first contributions are the Sputnik sculpture Linda Ljungdahl and two geometric metal sculptures by Olle Bjerkås and Per Dahlgren, two artists at Blivande.

I will post more pictures of the progress in the next few days, as well as from the event on Saturday, where Edgeryders will get a big poster and be part of two presentations.

What would you create at Frihamnstorget?

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If you’d be interested, maybe we could transplant some of the work we did for the Biennale in Ljubljana there, a performative dinner, and a gaming jam with Trust in Play community.

I was also offered to run an art gallery in Paris for the next one or two years, so there could be a connection - it’s a tiny place, so the works done for the containers could then be moved to a space in the center of another hip and artsy city.

Happy to bounce some ideas :slight_smile:

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Very cool! What would we need to do to make it happen?

Nice idea!

Some funding or support to get it, not a whole lot, also depending for how long would you like me/us to be there

Gotcha. We should probably try to apply for some funding then. Maybe this is relevant? Perhaps you could reuse parts of your existing application?

https://www.culturalfoundation.eu/action-grants-2019-second-round

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Amazing! It looks really cool as it is coming together, I can say from a firsthand view :slight_smile:

Would be fun to play some music out there. Maybe former rockstar @alberto can come jam sometime…

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Ok i can be on it possibly early this week. I also have one call for funds with @noemi - i think this is where we could also use it. Great! I would love to do something with gentrification and access to space, and funnt enough, containers and tiny galleries in paris are just so perfect and emblematic to both criticise but also imagine ways to move beyond the problem.

Lets talk very soon :slight_smile:

I will also loop you into the discussion i am having in riga, on artist run spaces project with candyland and supermarket art fair both from stockholm

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That would totally destroy your cool factor. :smile:

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May I suggest a career of explaining network science accompanied by the accordion, following in the footsteps of Tom Lehrer? Instant hit!

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I was recently at a very fun lecture from an urban architect who played xylophone at the same time. Loved it!

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Poster for Edgeryders
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Last 24 hours of build!

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You mean there is already someone doing it? :open_mouth:

Lehrer tackled 60s subject matter. “New Math”. Things like that. Too early for network science. There could be an opportunity here…