Sommaren 2020 (Vivalla Tunnel, Summer of 2020)

A walking/biking tunnel between Vivalla and Lundby became the site for a collaboration between eight summer-working young people and one professional artist. The group was given three weeks to design and produce an artwork and the result was a series of collage-like murals along both walls of the tunnel.

The walls were already covered by a black-and-white stone mosaic. The murals painted by the group are based on this same limited palette, with a bit of yellow added here and there.

The group decided together to work on positive representations of Vivalla. Images are interspersed with text. Cyclists and pedestrians are welcomed to Vivalla in a number of different languages and then sun and trees are integrated with a map of the area and logo from Vivalla square. In the middle of one wall prances a horse. Those who know Vivalla will recognize the horse from the horse sculpture by an unknown artist standing outside Vivalla School.

Anti-racism has also been a theme for the tunnel painting. The walls hold, for example, one black and one white hand forming a heart, and a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. The tunnel has also become a memorial to George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis, USA in May 2020 has resulted in an international wave of protests against police violence and racism. Among the images is Floyd’s portrait next to the abbreviation “BLM” for Black Lives Matter.

The project was arranged by the Örebro Art Gallery, in collaboration with the Trainstation organization.