FIRE, by PUBLIC RETRERAT

by PUBLIC RETREAT

This publication acts as a catalogue for the exhibition, the events and workshops that was performed and took place during the autumn of 2024 at Färgfabriken and Platform Stockholm, Stockholm (SE) by PUBLIC RETREAT. The collaborative art project returned to Lövholmen with the exhibition Public Retreat on Fire—A sonic investigation of burning questions about the future of our city (part of the Architecture Triennale at Färgfabriken) as well as for the residency in Platform Stockholm’s Deep Dive Program, as the first artist entry. The residency and exhibition converged into one larger artistic exploration, with fire and memory—mediated through sound—emerging as key themes.

PUBLIC RETREAT is an interdisciplinary, practice-based art project that explores the shared auditory environment of our cities and the human, non-human, and more-thanhuman relationships to it. Led by composer and sound artist Nicole Cecilie Bitsch Pedersen (DK), visual artist and writer Jo Mikkel Sjaastad Huse (NO), and architect and artist Johanna Fager (SE), the project involves a network of international collaborators and conversation partners. The collaborators began their work together in 2022 with the art and architecture project NYA LÖVHOLMEN as part of the Of Public Interest (OPI) Lab. The former industrial area, on the verge of becoming an urban residential area, Lövholmen in Stockholm served as a case study. This project included, among other things, semi-utopian architectural plans for a new neighborhood submitted as a citizen proposal, hand-sewn site-specific magazines distributed locally, and a radio show about city planning, partially narrated by an enthusiastic bird. NYA LÖVHOLMEN was nominated for the 2023 Critics’ Award by Architects Sweden.

Through artistic research, sound works, texts, installations, radio broadcasts, workshops, and exhibitions, PUBLIC RETREAT encourages citizens to reflect on the role of sound in their lives, from its physical properties to its emotional, psychological, and physiological impacts.

In a site-specific sound installation at Färgfabriken, the exhibition space’s view of the burned-out carbonic acid factory became central. Here, PUBLIC RETREAT explored fire as a potential catalyst for change. The installation invited the audience to reconsider the site outside the windows, immersing them in a blend of stories, facts, field recordings, and perceptions. Performative gestures and live radio broadcasts activated the installation, the construction site, and the surrounding area.

The residency at Platform Deep Dive featured listening sessions and workshops focused on memory and sound. Discussions and rituals centered on sounds to preserve and sounds to discard—symbolically thrown into the flames—took place at the site where the Carbon Acid Factory had burned down. Participants gathered within a structure built from the factory’s original bricks, offering a sense of being surrounded by the factory’s walls.

Scan the QR-codes and listen to stories, interviews, soundscapes, fieldrecordings and music! ©PUBLIC RETREAT, 2025. No 1, 2025, 1st Edition. Printed at FREDA Arkitekter, Stockholm Editors and publishers: Johanna Fager, Jo Mikkel Sjaastad Huse and Nicole Cecilie Bitsch Pedersen.

All texts, illustrations, photos and images by the editors if not stated otherwise.

Contributing interview: Dr David Budd e-mail: contact@public-retreat.com website: www.public-retreat.com instagram: @public_retreat

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Fire as construction method

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What does a home smell like? How does a public square feel?

What if neighborhoods were designed with sound, light, flexible spaces, and architecture that supports daily life? Will future generations experience this?

Lövholmen, once an industrial zone on the edge of Stockholm, is being transformed as the city expands. As industries move out, landowners and the city seize the chance to build expensive housing, using the area’s industrial past and waterfront as a selling point. Most of the land is privately owned, and plans include 2,000 high-rise condominiums, with factories largely demolished.

The proposal relies on nearby public services and parks but offers little beyond housing, deepening inequality and dividing communities. The Lövholmen project has been in development for over 20 years, with delays raising costs, and landowners likely pushing for higher prices.

But Lövholmen’s story is more than just about creating housing.

Its industrial history—from candle-making to machine guns, and more recently, arts and culture—offers the potential for something more vibrant.

One of the area’s factories, Kolsyrefabriken, produced carbonic acid for dry ice and carbon dioxide. On June 30, 2021, the closed factory was destroyed by fire. Despite fire brigades from across Stockholm responding, the building was reduced to rubble by morning. Much like the fires that ravaged the stock exchange in Copenhagen or Notre Dame in Paris, questions arise: What happens now? And who gets to decide?

Fire, as an element, has long been a symbol of both destruction and renewal. It’s often used to clear the old and make way for the new—whether it’s a building, a car, or barren soil being revitalized.

In Lövholmen, speculation around the fire immediately turned to the possibility of arson, as the area had been waiting for large-scale urban renewal. The police investigated, but any evidence there might have been was lost to the flames, and the case was closed.

Fire doesn’t just destroy—it shapes the future, just as it has always shaped the built environment. In the case of Lövholmen, it asks: What will rise from the ashes?

ELEGY TO A NORTH FACING QUAY

car road bench park office building asphalt bicycle steel pipe building fence excavator bus, subway crossing manhole cover pavestones, garden wall footbridge highway industrial remnant planted tree wooden bench cement square infrastructural machine commercial flag led screen neon light storefront tram lines sidewalk gravel path road sign roundabout bus stop toll road pedestrian crossing monument memorial street lamp overpass underpass bridge railing alleyway sewer hole electric scooter lost helmet cigarette butt beer can city furniture bird carcass, wheel-less bike frame ping-pong table public restroom kiosk car dealership night club café around-the-clock convenience store traffic machine train garage graveyard trash can bird song drainage grate construction site skate park power grid diesel dust microplastic railway station freight terminal shopping mall shopping street restaurant district cruise ship terminal waterfront saunas public beach national museum government building flashing light lawnmower dog bar cat shit square school coffee shop bike stand postbox tree aisle tiny rock chewing gum kindergarten speed bump cobblestone crossroads electrical utility box transmission tower hardware store supermarket import shop art gallery boba tea place key grinder shrub antenna bush city hall bank office property developers main quarters gas station winter tire storage informative led panel container quay island ferry flagpole flagship store watch maker recycling plant garbage incinerator foam plastic center electronics shop hi-fi reseller stage system rent provider karaoke taxi service international goods importer consultancy skyscraper empty development plot artificial river dried out fountain rat park dove’s nest decorative flowerbed realtor’s company basketball court

Fire monologue at the plot of the burnt-down Carbonic Acid Factory. Listening event and collective talk with PUBLIC RETREAT around the fire pit hosted by Platform Deep Dive. October 2024.

Fever, fury, fiery sensation.

Devotion, desire, burnout, exhaustion, hatred.

I ignite the sparks of rebellion!

I am revenge and horny lovers in the night!

I am your bright idea!

Destruction and rebirth!

I am the light in the darkness, too!!!

If I want to seem lucid, I can’t keep walking around the boiling hot porridge.

I need to burn my darlings and focus on one thing at a time – like candlelight.

Nothing’s that straight forward in the real world.

When I burn, I burn until whatever’s burning burns up, till I’m extinguished, exhausted.

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Photos by Neela Negar Latifian

I am actually quite simple.

I am a utility, of service.

The concrete process of combustion – put to use.

Without over-explaining, I could let my work speak for itself – a generally collaborative practice, with main focuses on lighting, food prep, heating, industry and agriculture purposes, coziness, weaponry, war, fraud and whatnot.… With a career development following the di!ering needs of di!erent times! With varying levels of success in balancing control and chaos – incidentally reshaping ways of living, entire cities and civilisations.

In some ways, I’m a neutral force, but what even is neutrality?

Is that a goal in and of itself?

I can feel it, I’m burning faster than I replenish – Oh, I’m fried, alright!

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I steam and singe and boil and scald and scorch and ravage and devour and devastate and disintegrate.

All the while I cook and warm disinfect and re-fertilize.

To be honest, I’m confused …and quite afraid.

I am not in control of myself.

Either I’m controlled, contained, by someone else, or I’m completely out of control.

I am everything at once. Not at all neutral, I might be the exact opposite.

Simultaneously evil and caring life and death.

At least I’m not naïve!

I’m aflame with emotions, set ablaze.

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Layers of Change Are you here now?

You are looking out over parts of the last, central, industrial area in Stockholm. Lövholmen. You can see Hornstull there, on the other side of the water. And Reimersholme, hidden behind those large trees to your left.

If you bend, turn, a little, look to the right, you can see the concrete silos of Cementa. A cement depot facility, run by a large international conglomerate.

Is a boat floating by on the water? Bringing sand from the other side of the world? A seagull sitting on its bow, hunting for fish?

To your left is a brick and stone building called Smedjan, the forge. Here, there were blacksmiths, fires and dangerous work being done.

If you close your eyes maybe you can hear the roaring fire of the forge, smell the smoke from its chimney, hear the banging of the heavy tools - an echo through history.

Now turn your head, can you see the SKROT sign? Scrap - junk.

That is what it means. Wonder what kind of interesting things one can find there.

You become a voyeur. Can you see what they are having for dinner, across the canal, in the third apartment from the right in the orange-ish building?

None of these things would have been seen if the carbon dioxide factory, Kolsyrefabriken, was still here. Then, you would look out on a yellow plastered building, there on the plateau. And behind it silos, tubes and the beautiful brick building with its signature sign towards the water.

Now, come back to the burned plot.

Imagine a 40 cm high structure of bricks still standing. Or has someone built them up anew?

In the brick square, slightly to your right, there might have been an office, or a kitchen? Or the factory floor, with the dry ice steaming.

The plot has since the fire been cleared, and stands there now, empty of buildings.

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But maybe other things thrive?

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A meadow An amphitheater A nightclub A skyscraper or maybe the entrance to a subterranean realm A playground A public office An artificial volcano ?

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Photo by Samuel Michaëlsson

Dr Volcano & re-mediation Volcanoes, urban fires, and bioremediation: a conversation with geologist Dr. Dave Budd Throughout history, fire has plagued and shaped societies -cities and their inhabitants, human, and more-than-human alike.

It looms as an ever-present force, capable of destruction, transformation, and regrowth.

When a city burns, when the familiar goes up in smoke, a void is left behind as a blank slate for new ideas, public spaces, and architecture. But who holds the power to decide what will take shape from the ashes?

This evening, we find ourselves at Lövholmen, a former industrial site in Stockholm, on the cusp of redevelopment. Once home to factories and heavy industry, the area is now marked by its past -a burnt-down carbonic acid factory stands as a reminder of fire’s transformative force.

It’s a Wednesday in late September. Inside a room at Färgfabriken, repurposed as an exhibition space, a gathering is taking place.

Around an artificial bonfire -logs arranged atop a flickering orange lamp, with a speaker emitting soft crackling sounds, spirits and people are gathered. The atmosphere is warm, filled with quiet murmurs and the gentle hum of audio equipment.

This is the scene of a live broadcast of Public Retreat Radio, a program exploring the theme of fire through stories, essays, eclectic music, field recordings, monologues, and theater readings. The broadcast has been playing for some time, blending voices and sounds into the air.

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At this moment, an interview is about to unfold. Three figures are seated on logs around the bonfire, their faces illuminated by the glow of the faux flames. Off to the side, another figure works the controls of a large sound mixer, headphones on, fine-tuning the balance of the broadcast. The room is alive with the subtle noises of movement; shuffling, the creak of a chair, and the occasional rustle of paper.

Someone stands and steps away from the circle, replaced by another who settles onto a stool by the fire. A faint ‘thump’ echoes as the microphone is adjusted to the height of geologist Dave Budd, a doctor on volcanoes turned expert in remediation of industrial soil.

The interview begins.

Listen to the full story:

As the conversation continues, the voices blend into the crackle of the artificial fire.

Outside, the industrial remains of Lövholmen stand silent in the night, their future unknown, but for now, the stories here, both real and imagined, carry on.

Photo by Maya Nagano Holm

Crackling histories.

Fluttering shadows.

Excerpt from “PUBLIC RETREAT on Fire” Sound Installation at Färgfabriken October 2024

What was that?

the night, sizzling in the heat.

An insect, an idea, a phantom,

By bonfire, by torch.

a friend, a monster, a memory.

By lamps made from hollow rocks and

Ghosts. Spectres,

seashells filled with moss

otherworldly manifestations.

soaked in animal fat.

Apparitions, animals, ancestral

Under the open sky, in a cave, at the

visitors – spirits, ghosts, ghouls.

foot of the mountain, a forest clearing.

Hallucinations, lies and truths, half-

Raspy, dark voice, eyes alight with

lies and half-truths, fused together.

mirrored flames.

Immaterial theatre

…Once upon a time

Alluded shapes

….And then!

Narratives of implication

…Suspended, suspense –

Murky dramaturgy

Gesticualting hands, pointing

What was that?

fingers,

Words dancing on the rock walls

aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAHH!

– disappearing, appearing or

[breath like wind]

reappearing in the billowing smoke.

and the moral of the story is….

Curling smoke. Stinging smoke, acrid

Huddling together, we gather like

smell, sore eyes, burnt toe, thumb,

we’ve always gathered. Share this

strand of hair.

gossip like we share this meal. Warmth

Transformations, translations,

against the cold, alerting animals of

transmutations. Languages created in

our presence, keeping insects at bay.

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Photo by Maya Nagano Holm

Photos by Maya Nagano Holm from the installation and exhibition PUBLIC RETREAT on fire, Färgfabriken Architexture Tiennale (SE), October 2024

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”Will You Remember Lövholmen” Platform Deep Dive (SE) August 2024

Will you remember Lovholmen?

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We often don’t just hear sounds, but feel them. From the warmth of a grandmother’s lullaby to the hum of traffic in the city you grew up in, sounds become part of our experience, shaping memories. In a world that’s constantly changing, preserving these sounds is as important as remembering the places themselves. They live in a collective memory, creating a sonic archive of communities, cultures, and traditions. These soundscapes serve as a historical record, helping future generations connect with the past.

Sound is elusive, beginning as vibrations in the air or other materials, which our ears convert into signals sent to the brain. But when does sound become “sound”? Is it just physical vibration, or does it exist as a mental experience in our minds?

Lövholmen is on the brink of transformation. The industrial sounds that once filled the area are fading as the neighborhood shifts from production to mainly housing. As the area awaits revitalization, some sounds—old factories, busy streets—are slipping away. The changes to the landscape will inevitably alter its soundscape. By archiving these sounds, we preserve the essence of the place at this moment, capturing the auditory history of a space on the edge of change.

Archiving sound isn’t just about recording noise. It’s about capturing the full sensory experience—through memory, technology, or language. While sound can’t be stored like written records or images, we can hold it in our minds or describe it through stories and words, sharing its texture and atmosphere.

Echoic memory, a brief, sensory memory for sounds, lasts about 4 seconds. If the sound is important, it moves to short-term memory and may eventually become a part of long-term memory. The more you replay it, the more likely it is to stay with you.

Some say the future of memory will be auditory, not visual. So listen closely, replay those sounds, and let them settle into your long-term memory. Will Lövholmen’s industrial past, or the natural sounds now reclaiming the space, become part of a collective identity passed down through stories and shared experiences?

Photo by Lou Mouw

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Excerpt from “PUBLIC RETREAT RADIO: Fire” – Live broadcast from Färgfabriken on radiOrakel, October 2024

Embers and Silence The child is breathing.

Rhythmic, deep, breaths that fill the chest.

Her small chubby hand feels heavy against my cheek. Hot and a little sweaty.

I open the bedroom door, confused now – the whole living room is flashing in blue and red neon tones. It’s dark, but strangely foggy outside. Then I see the smoke rising along the facade, moving upwards, thick, black-grey. I count to 12, 16 emergency vehicles, way down on the ground.

Only then do I hear the deafening blare of the sirens.

The house is on fire.

Rescue – alarm – extinguish.

Rescue – alarm – extinguish.

The mantra from all the fire drills at different youth associations echoes in my head.

I’m properly awake now.

I run into the bedroom, the child is still fast asleep, I pick up the phone and call 112.

I ramble. Sorry to call, but there is smoke all over the house. I have my 2 year old daughter here.

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The operator tells me there are 4 blazing fires in the basement. Stay inside,don’t open any doors or windows. Pack bags with essentials. Wait. Cook breakfast, play with your child. We’ll come get you if, or when, we have to.

Stay inside, play with your child.

Play with your child.

Play with your child?

The house is on fire.

Stay inside, play with your child.

I turn on the TV. We get dressed, eat, I pack.

Panic rises - do we have to jump from the balcony onto a trampoline? Or do we climb out on a ladder sent up by the fire brigade?

We are 21 meters above ground.

Do I have to throw my child from the balcony? Who will catch her?

Siren sound. Children’s laughter. Children’s TV program sounds.

Siren sound. Children’s laughter. Children’s TV program sounds.

An eternity later there is a knock, a forceful banging, on the door.

You have 2 minutes to get dressed, then come out into the stairwell, the fire fighter says.

The door closes.

Now please little darling, don’t make a fuss, mommy is trying to dress us quickly….

Winter overalls on, warm shoes, hat?

Another loud bang on the door. Time to go. __ Much later we get to go down into the basement and have a look. Everything is black and sooty and sticky. Or gone, in ashes.

We manage to save some of the older child’s drawings, photos.

My grandfather’s letters can still be read, so I pack them.

The nativity scene, the one we bought as a joke, is only half melted. You can make out some of the wise men, the donkey. Baby Jesus? We kept it.

Packing in silence.

Lump after lump of molten belongings go in the container.

The vinyl collection has to go. A whole world of music. Tones, songs and sounds that, when looking at the album covers, brings back memories in a millisecond.

We smile a little, and sing our way through

the last hours of sorting through what’s left of our past lives.

A box of things from where I was born must be thrown away. A place I’ve never been back to, that I don’t remember. My parents’ stories are what there is, they lived there temporarily because of a job that was there at the time. Far far away. The small, physical objects, the little memorabilia, somehow connected me there.

A deep sense of loss comes over me.

Disproportionately large. I am ashamed and immediately think of children, families, in the world who have nothing.

The shame burns in my stomach. But the sense of loss is there, nonetheless.

The insurance company emburse us with a few thousand kronor for the lost items.

For the vinyl collection nothing. __ The child is breathing.

I lie down next to her, look at the peaceful face and put her little hand in mine.

We fall asleep.

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Performance of “SCENE 1: Burning Questions – A Fire Play”. A conversation between three characters with a deep, burning passion.

Excerpt from “PUBLIC RETREAT RADIO: Fire”, Live Broadcast from Färgfabriken on RadiOrakel, October 2024

Photo by Anna-Karin Wulgué

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The Evolution of the Urban Sonotope Sonotope: ”sono-” (sound) + ”-topos” (place) The Industrial Revolution transformed not only technology but the way we experience sound. Factories, steam engines, and railways filled the air with clanging metal, hissing steam, and rhythmic chugging, pushing natural sounds like birdsong and flowing water into the background. As cities grew, the noise of traffic, and construction layered over these mechanical sounds, creating a dense and restless urban soundscape.

Urban sonotopes have since evolved further. While bustling traffic and human activity dominate, parks and green spaces offer zones where more ‘natural’ and human sounds blend in. Today, the transition to electric motors is softening some urban noises while introducing unfamiliar ones, reshaping the auditory texture of cities yet again. What sonic identities are being formed today? What does a city sound like when it begins to quiet down –or when new sounds take root?

At Lövholmen, or in any place shaped by fire, sonotopes change in an even more rapid way. What happens when fire touches a landscape, building, neighbourhood or a whole city? How does the sonotope change in the absence of what once was? What does it mean to listen to silence, to ruins, to spaces that have been stripped of their familiar sounds? What new sounds emerge –what voices return first, and which ones never come back?

How do we tune in to these shifts? Do we hear loss or opportunity, destruction or renewal? What do these transformed sonotopes reveal to those who stop and listen?

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It is an August day 2024. We are at Slotshlomen i Copenhagen.

Standing just outside of the plot of the burned down former ‘Copenhagen Stock Exchange’ - Børsen. The weather is warn although windy (-not the perfect conditions for a fieldrecording).

The building burned halfway down just 1,5 weeks ago, including the dragespir -dragon spire. From this point of view you can glimpse a look into the building and the scorched interior that’s left under the collapsed roof. The remaining walls, on this end of the building, are held up with the help of scaffolding and a number of empty containers. On the other side of the building from where we stand, is the road leading from the city center to Christianshavn and Amager, these days blocked to make room for the fire sanitation work. It is (now) around midday, and the construction workers on the site are on their way to their lunch break.

This is a recording of the transformed sonotope of Børsen in Copenhagen, as it stands in the aftermath of the fire.

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Alongside their exhibition at Färgfabriken and radio broadcasts at RadiOrakel, and amid the charred remains of the burnt-down carbonic acid factory—once off-limits to the public—PUBLIC RETREAT began laying the foundations of a new structure using discarded bricks. Visible from the exhibition space’s window, the growing structure became a bridge between the interior and exterior, inviting visitors to physically and conceptually engage with the history and potential of the site.

Inside Färgfabriken, a multichannel sound installation blended stories, historical facts, and speculative future imaginings. The installation unfolded a narrative of fire—starting with the burning of the factory, weaving through humanity’s long relationship with fire, bonfires, and beyond. The air around the bonfire installation hummed with crackling embers, while the rhythmic pulse of the multichannel soundscape mixed together fieldrecordings and abstract drones.

The narration encouraged visitors to rise from the bonfire installation, take two steps up to the metal staircase platform, and gaze out the window onto the evolving structure and imagine what could rise in place of the burnt factory: perhaps housing, a library, a garden, or something entirely unforeseen.

The structure also served as a stage for an outdoor listening event hosted by Platform Deep Dive. Visitors gathered around the bonfire’s crackling heat tinged with the scent of smoke, grilling marshmellows, as they listened to a monologue from the perspective of a flame learning about the history of the site, engaging in political conversations, and performing a sonic ritual in two parts. Collectively reflecting on the role of fire in shaping cities, on the futures and pasts represented by flames.

At the exhibition’s end, the performative act of dismantling the structure was documented in a video, Performance of Dismantling (51:04 min). The tactile sound of bricks being moved, the sharp scrape of metal against metal, and the slow collapse of the physical form were captured as a conclusion to the cycle of creation and destruction.

Fire and Form

Photo by Maya Nagano Holm

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Hello there Welcome.

Wherever you are, pause.

Let your arms rest down your side or on your lap.

Lower your shoulders.

Listen.

Now, imagine you are in empty space.

Blackness surrounds you.

No feelings, thoughts or sensations disturb you.

Carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen, in transformation.

Release of energy.

Visible gaseous combustion.

Exothermic chemical reaction.

You are heat, the arrow of time, ignited.

ISBN 978-91-531-3154-0

Intro from the episode Public Retreat Radio - Fire, broadcasted live from Färgfabriken Octotber, 2024