July 11, 2005
The Bright Red House on Craggy Island
In one of the harbours in the town where I live is a very small island, hardly more than a dome of bare rock. It’s properly called Stakholmen, but I always think of it as ‘Craggy Island.’ A footbridge connects it to the shore, so that one may walk over to it, admire the none-too-impressive remnants of the foundations where once stood some 18th-Century fortifications, and satisfy oneself that there’s nothing more to it than that, before walking back shorewards again.
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About a month or so ago, however, there suddenly appeared a bright red house on Craggy Island: a scarlet house, a Monopoly-Hotel-red house. At first I guessed that it might be some kind of tourist-information station, but, a couple of weeks ago I happened to see a short article about it in a local free-sheet which explained that it was, in fact, a work of art…
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On Sunday morning I finally got around to taking a closer look. I had thought perhaps it was a plastic or metal mock-up, but no, it’s a proper, full-scale wooden house, in traditional Swedish holiday-cottage style, just a brighter shade than the usual red. What’s more, peering through the windows I could see red-painted walls, red-painted floorboards, and even a red-painted kitchen and bathroom. The door was locked, alas, so I was unable to take a look around inside.
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The house is a multimedia installation entitled FÃ¥rjaglov, (‘Shallwedance’) by a Malmö-based artist called Peter Johansson. Apparently, on approaching the house, one is supposed to hear the strains of ABBA’s music emanating from within, intended, I think, as a sarcastic comment on a certain conformist ‘prefabricated’ sense of Swedishness: on Sunday morning, however, it was silent.
Posted by misteraitch at July 11, 2005 11:06 AMFascinating! My first impression from the photo was that of a fairly normal Swedish or Finnish cottage on a typical tiny rocky island. Then I notice the very bright red, and then the decorative treatment which isn't Finnish after all. It is intriguing installation art because it tweaks us about our "normal" perceptions. Wish I could see it and hear it in person.
Posted by: marja-leena on July 11, 2005 06:22 PMcool.
Posted by: syd on July 11, 2005 08:26 PMHow beautiful. Now if only more installation type art were so intriguing...
Posted by: A. R. on July 12, 2005 03:28 AMHow lovely. It reminds me a little of the story of Jean Lafitte's scarlet house on Galveston Island.
I especially like the inside fittings. I have to say, however, that my inner scenographer wishes the whole thing wasn't such a flat red -- that there was more texture and variation to it, so that it didn't look quite so much like a plastic toy house.
(I lurk on this journal quite often -- I rarely comment but I always enjoy your entries.)
Posted by: Sam on July 12, 2005 05:24 AMit strikes me that as interesting as the house itself is physically sitting there, too red and surprising, that for those of you who actually live in the area, who perhaps stroll over that little bridge to take advantage of those benches i see among the rocks, the "strains of ABBA’s music emanating from within" would get real old real quick.
i imagine that factor alone would keep me from visiting the site more than once. nothing against ABBA particularly, just the thought of any looping soundtrack out there would drive me up a (red) wall. even sitting across the bridge from the island, looking at it across the water... just the knowledge that the same song was playing over and over and over on the island would make me crazy. i might have to move out of the town altogether!
Posted by: jmorrison on July 12, 2005 02:47 PMIt had brought me joy and laughter - merci!
Posted by: Lena on July 13, 2005 04:20 AMI also found it intensely, hautingly beautiful, lovely pictures too. Thanks.
Posted by: paulm on July 16, 2005 01:13 AMIsn't that colour the famous (in Sweden) Falun Red?
Posted by: Loxias on July 21, 2005 04:57 AMLoxias—Falun red is quite a bit darker than this: see the link above behind the words ‘usual red,’ above.
Posted by: misteraitch on July 21, 2005 08:02 AM