- Intervention
- Public Art
Pink Square Project
Isabella Chydenius
3 July 2026 19:00 – 4 July 2026 00:00
4 July 2026 10:00 – 5 July 2026 00:00
5 July 2026 10:00–19:00
Feedback shows that many people instinctively step into the pink squares; however, once inside, questions arise. What does this impulse mean? Is it connected to ingrained ideas of safety, childhood games, or unchallenged political thinking?
The project is informed by my research into the history of queer underground nightclub culture, its origins, and its ongoing development in Berlin and other club cities. Since 2018, the research has focused on how spaces are created and what must be considered when aiming to form intentional safer spaces in the night-time economy. In 2021, I began translating these questions into public space rather than gallery contexts. The city at night offers a vital perspective, as the outside often motivates the desire to seek space inside, and vice versa.
The square shape reflects this liminality: borders, access, regulation, and exclusion. Encountering a pink square on the street offers no solutions, but rather an invitation to reflect.
The project is informed by my research into the history of queer underground nightclub culture, its origins, and its ongoing development in Berlin and other club cities. Since 2018, the research has focused on how spaces are created and what must be considered when aiming to form intentional safer spaces in the night-time economy. In 2021, I began translating these questions into public space rather than gallery contexts. The city at night offers a vital perspective, as the outside often motivates the desire to seek space inside, and vice versa.
The square shape reflects this liminality: borders, access, regulation, and exclusion. Encountering a pink square on the street offers no solutions, but rather an invitation to reflect.
Biography
Isabella Chydenius
Isabella Chydenius’ practice explores the night and underground nightclub culture as spaces of togetherness, momentary freedom and joy away from the heteropatriarchal square norms of the day. The research highlights the history of queer nightclubs as sites of resistance and draws attention to how they may serve as a catalyst for change in society through dialogue between activists, artists and socio-political movements. She is interested in the club space as a metaphor and abject, and approaches them as microcosms within larger society. The ideas are interpreted through light, video, sound, cast glass, text, photography, ripped clothes, and tape to create sculptures, immersive installations, and public interventions.
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