Clouds
December 2013
In connection with Julstaden Göteborg 2013 (the City of
Gothenburg’s official Christmas celebrations), Creativity
Unlimited produced an installation in the cityscape based
on Canadian artist Max Streicher’s famous inflatables
– in this case, suspended inflatable shapes and figures
that hover in the air above people in streets and open
spaces. Using Streicher’s ideas, CU in cooperation with
the artist Pecka Söderberg and students at Chalmers University
of Technology, created a number of inflatable clouds that
were suspended between the roof tops in Harry Hjörnes plats
in the heart of historic Gothenburg. During a few weeks
before Christmas, they hung there, unconcered about the busy
Christmas shoppers below.
The purpose of the installation was to give the cityscape a
unique aesthetic form and feel, while also raising questions
about the cityscape itself. Clouds aimed at visualising the
interstitial space between bulidings and other structures
that is often forgotten in the day to day discussions about
urban design. The clouds with which we, for a short moment,
filled a small part of the cityscape, depended on these empty
spaces – the empty spaces that make room for thought and
creativity. Similar empty spaces occur in all forms of art:
between the various objects of a picture, you find the
intermediate space; in books and poems, much is said between
the lines; silence gives life to music. The interstitial space
is where people can meet, talk to each other, and make new
aquaintances as well as experiences. It is where the unexpected
can happen. The space beween buildings and structures is what
gives life to a city. Clouds created a space for tranquillity
and contemplation during what is arguably the most hectic,
and possibly stressful, time of the year. Furthermore, they
moved heaven a bit closer to earth. Or was it the other
way around.
Clouds was produced in cooperation with:
Chalmers University of Technology
Pecka Söderberg
Göteborg & Co