The artwork Fri Vers is planned as a temporary facade display of the Rewell Center building by the Market Square in Vaasa. The work has been brought into attention of the two proprietors of the facade by the Pro Artibus Foundation, but approval is pending. The project proposal is part of the program Sharing Text that Séraphin launched as a part of her Pro Artibus Foundation residency and postdoctoral research at the Åbo Akademy University. Sharing Text is an inquiry about how text can be published site purposely and written collectively as collaborative writing.
The artwork Fri Vers is planned as a temporary facade display of the Rewell Center building by the Market Square in Vaasa. The work has been brought into attention of the two proprietors of the facade by the Pro Artibus Foundation, but approval is pending.
Fri Vers has been developed from collective writing experiments in the Market Square. It is based on oral communication and especially filler words voiced, for instance, during pauses in speech. These words, single syllables or sounds, can also be called floor-holders referring to taking place in a conversation: “Umm, what I would like to point out is…”
In the current plan for the artwork Fri Vers, six different filler words are tested in Swedish, Finnish and English. These are umm, alltså, ba, liksom, tota and niinku. Graphic artist Jonas Williamsson has chosen a font for the work from the Garald group.
The artwork Fri Vers invites to rediscover the Rewell Center building, designed by Vaasa-born Viljo Revell, and its distinctive architectural expression. The work suggests new ways to look at the facade as a spread from a book or as a kind of two-dimensional sheet of placed text. The artwork Fri Vers equally comments urban planning and commercial signage, and highlights spoken language in the midst of corporate titles and urban space.