Whirl - Art Inside Out

Invited by Art Inside Out, the artist couple Anja and Tomas Örn have created the sculpture Whirl, which you can see out on the islet in Lagan next to the hydroelectric power plant. A body of water tells us a lot about a place, it helps us stop and look, or gives us a valley to follow. Sometimes it reflects the sky and tells us about good weather, sometimes it roars forward at dizzying speed. People care about water and our rivers, lakes and seas mean a lot to us. In Lagan, the power plants have long influenced the flow of the water. The turbines convert the water’s head and forward movement into a spin that generates energy and becomes electricity.

The circulation follows the water out of the power plant in different layers of eddies that fill the canal and follow its stretch through the landscape. There is a big difference between different movements of the water, the calm and the chaos that can arise through one and the same turbine.

Sometimes the surface boils, and the eddies break, becoming back currents and bubbles that burst. Sometimes they spin on completely smoothly and without hesitation. The sculpture Whirl sees water as a movement. Together with researchers at Luleå University of Technology, the artists have studied the movements of the water as it passes through the turbines of the power plant. The artwork Whirl is a sketch of the swirling movement of the water here in Knäred. It is drawn in steel pipes and lifted out of the water. If it were possible to follow a water molecule, its movement could draw such a picture, someday, somewhere here in Knäred’s beautiful canal.

Art Inside Out is a nomadic art institution in Halland that occupies new and for art unexpected places; both in the city and in the countryside. Art Inside Out invites artists to residencies to create new artworks, exhibitions and public meetings anchored in local contexts. Art Inside Out is run by Region Halland together with Halland’s six municipalities.

Photo nr 1 by Hendrik Zeitler