Ljusbågen (Electric Arc)

Outside Folkets Park in Brunnsparken, the sculpture Electric Arc by Dascha Esselius has been standing since 1990. The sculpture, which is also a light artwork, consists of three big arcs, the largest of which is 20 metres tall. The work is executed in postmodernist style, with typical material choices such as neon and metallic mirrors.

The largest arc is equipped with neon light, which glows enticingly in red, yellow, green, blue and purple, reminiscent of a rainbow.
The shiny, mirror-like surfaces of the smaller arcs reflect the neon lights from the large arc and mirror colours and motion in their surroundings, for example, from people passing by.

This is what the artist has to say about her work:
‘In 1990, when I was the head teacher in sculpture at Örebro Art College, I was commissioned by Folkets Hus och Parker to create a work that would function as a sort of port of call for Brunnsparken. Because the earmarked budget wasn’t all that big, I decided to submit two different sketches in my proposal. One presented a smaller sculpture that could be executed within the budget. The other sketch presented the sculpture Ljusbågen, which was considerably larger at 7x20x10 metres, and thus wouldn’t fit in the allocated budget, but which in my opinion was needed for the character of the site and purpose of the commission.

The Municipality of Örebro decided to contribute funds so that the Ljusbågen sculpture could be realized. The sculpture was renovated and re-inaugurated in 2019 when ownership was transferred to Örebro.’

Dascha Esselius describes herself as a cross-disciplinary artist. She works with film, photography, sculpture, painting, public art and video installations in her works, which she creates with flows of video projections on layers of transparent veils surrounding the audience. She created one such installation, entitled Ett stycke för ljus och mörker (A Piece for Light and Darkness), at the Art Gallery in Wadköping in 1987.