- We have invited local artists, who come in and paint directly on our shop windows. So there will be live painting directly in the city, directly on the windows. We call it Kvarnholmen Gallery, so they are located in slightly different places in the city center, says Lisa Söderholm, center developer at the collaboration actor Kalmar city.

The project has sprung from the corona pandemic when many of the city center's store premises became empty in a short time. Already before, however, the municipality has worked to bring more art to the center.

Hoping for success concept

Initially, there will be ten shop windows on Kvarnholmen to be painted, but Lisa Söderholm hopes that "Gallery Kvarnholmen" can be a concept to work with even after the pandemic and that local artists will be contracted when property owners get an empty room.

- It may sound sad that we will have empty premises in the future as well. But with such a large city center, with several hundred premises, there is always someone available, she says.

Art is immortalized digitally

The works of art are temporary installations and will be removed when new tenants move into the empty premises. How long it takes, however, can vary.

- In some cases it may go quite fast and in other cases it may take a little longer. So the works of art will not be forever in reality, but we will make sure to save them digitally, so that they can also be viewed even after they have been removed from the windows, says Björn Strimfors, attractor at Kalmar municipality.