18 May – 1 June
Audible between 07:00 – 22:00

Opening May 18, 18:00

The installation is inaugurated with an introduction by Ellen Arkbro and Joel Albinsson, followed by a communal listening to the sound work.

In the middle of the city, at the point where Tunnelgatan and Malmskillnadsgatan meet, a brick building gives way to an occluded passage, a covered terrace. This place is a stone’s throw away from the district’s main street, immediately adjacent to the infamous stairs that Olof Palme’s killer used to make their escape, and above popular Brunkebergstunneln. These sites, though their significance vary greatly in character, all hold a strong place in the public consciousness of the city as sites of transit and commerce, of memory, and the melding of striking architecture and historic feats of engineering.

In contrast, the terrace itself is insignificant to most. Designed to fit a one-way escalator and a lift, it is a space of pure function which provides the city with much needed accessibility. It serves this purpose but does little else. There is no monumentality, no grandeur, no weight of history. It is next to, near, but ultimately a passive bystander to things bigger than itself. Still, it operates as a part in a vital system designed to ferry people up and down Brunkebergsåsen, the steep ridge that cuts across northern Stockholm.

Here the terrace lies, tucked away. Appearing as a hole in the cityscape, not immediately visible unless you know where to look or if you approach it with purpose. The enclosed emptiness calls out for something to fill it and give it shape: to mark it, amending function with form. To prompt the city’s inhabitants to stop and consider what the city is made up of. The holes and pockets, the places that exist next to or in-between, the spaces that still serve a purpose and those that have been made into appendixes, traces of past functions.

Ellen Arkbro responds to the call with a sonic intervention which alters our perception of this otherwise unremarkable space. As the work fills the passage, the space is at once condensed and expanded. The sound melds with the mechanical rhythmic beating of the escalator and the constant thrum of traffic from outside while providing an alternative, embodied mode of listening. The terrace is thus remade into sculptural form which unfolds and changes as one moves through it. The sound seeps through the cracks, flowing out in a suggestive invitation to come and discover, and to exist in this place for a while.

Ellen Arkbro (b.1990, Stockholm) is a Berlin-based composer, musician and sound artist working with harmony and intonation. Her work includes compositions for ensembles and orchestras as well as sustained chordal sculptures presented in installation form.

She has presented her work at Barbican in London, Munch museum in Oslo, Blank Forms in New York, GRM in Paris and the Kölner Philharmonie in Cologne among other places. She is currently an artist in residence at La Becque in Switzerland.

Joel Albinsson (b.1997, Örebro) is a Stockholm-based curator whose work engages with the temporal and spatial qualities of sounding art, as well as with questions regarding urbanities and the power over the city.

Albinsson is currently finishing his master’s degree in curating art at Stockholm University. Recent curatorial work includes the performance piece En Kör Möter at Accelerator in Stockholm with co-curator Hanna Bargheer, and the publication Humanitet for Folkrörelsernas konstfrämjande.

About the MA

The International Master's Programme in Curating, including Art, Management and Law is a collaboration between Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics and the schools of Business and Law, together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

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