Gothenburg, the city, the people and life are the starting point for the work Citárium: Recollections of a City by artist Berenice Hernández. The city takes up space in the façade of the Park Central, the new central station in Gothenburg.
During her recurring visits to the city, Berenice Hernández has collected colours, impressions and expressions by collecting traces on Gothenburg’s streets, squares and museums. Subsequently, they have been reworked into handmade bricks and incorporated into and become part of the façade of the Park Central, a signature building that, among other things, houses the eastern entrance of the West Link in the area by the new central station in Gothenburg.
The work is called Citárium: Recollections of a City. “Citárium” is a made-up word, a fusion of language and meanings: cita – to quote, to call, to convene – and civitas – the city, but also the community or society, the people who shape and are shaped by the place. The imprints in the bricks also function precisely as a kind of visual quote – fragments that through their materiality build a story beyond words. Here the work becomes a reminder of what has been, the traces we have left, but equally a kind of look forward, where history, the crack in the asphalt, the plan of the square or the blue-grey colour of the sea also point to the life that lies ahead of us. Dreams and hopes. A city that is constantly in motion, reassembled, shaped and reshaped.
The work is under production and will be inaugurated towards the end of 2026.
Artist biography Berenice Hernández
Berenice Hernández (born in Mexico, lives and works in Sweden) works with sculpture, video and performance. A recurring theme in her work is the connection between place and belonging, and the power that architecture can have over society and the individual.
Hernández has a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and an MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Her work has been shown in Mexico, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the USA and Belgium and is included in the collections of KODE Art Museum, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Public Art Agency, Region Dalarna and Region Stockholm.