Dazzling and offensive!
Village:
"As long as you live in a village, you have to care." (Tjärdalen) Skellefteå is also its hinterland and villages. Our cultural centre needs to create a culture throughout the municipality. A cultural centre (in the city centre) can only really work when it is connected to a vibrant cultural life in the villages and among the cultural organisations of the towns and villages.
Word:
"Accept the books, Rönnog. Their value can be revealed - after a certain period of storage." (Lifsens rot) Our cultural centre must offer a cultural everyday life. A library and a library café with a stage. A travel centre for the soul. Creation in words. Stories. Language. No, not just language but languages. Tigrinya, Farsi and Skjelletmål.
Solidarity:
"This little spa is also a corner of the people's home that needs your presence." (Expressen 1974) Our house of culture must be a hub in the fight against oppression, not just for those of us who live a good life. Everyone has the right to feel welcomed, needed, and safe. Regardless of purchasing power, origin, or gender.
"Sam-vett":
"That there was a heritage of ‘sam-vett’? That each individual being obeyed a law that emanated from the whole. That all the living stayed together - through a thousand battles and caresses." (Järnkronan).
Our cultural centre will be a sustainable building throughout its entire life cycle. A passive house for active culture, that employs local building techniques, working with local materials, and shaped by local labour. With locally produced, organic food.
(‘Sam-vett’ was Lidman’s theory that everything - man, nature and animal - is deeply bound together and that a profound knowledge of nature is based on a feeling more than on the intellect – a feeling that begins where language ends).
Resistance:
"...such a rage inside of you that you don't get the peace to work on a novel until you lodge a protest." (Varje löv är ett öga).
Our house of culture isn't just a place for a cultural middle class to have a good time. It must also provide space for resistance, for those who want to define their own culture. Those who cannot afford market rents. A place for democracy.
Body:
"And stood there body to body for a long time two armless fools, like two hot poles, which would have fallen if they had not accidentally leaned against each other." (Lifsen's root).
Our cultural centre must be a community body. Body and reason. With physical empathy. Love and humour. Where cultures meet and support each other.
Learn more about Sara from the Sara Lidman Society
Artistic design of the building
The artwork "Everything is life" adorns the interior of Sara Kulturhus and is the artistic design of the building. Be sure to check it out when you come here - there are many different areas to discover.
The work was created by artist Klara Kristalova, whose work was inspired by Sara Lidman's books. You might find some familiar things here, and others that might stimulate some new ideas and stories.