Nordanå
Nordanå is a scenic cultural and outdoor leisure district close to Skellefteå city centre. Several major events are arranged at Nordanå each year.
Several major events are arranged at Nordanå each year: the Trästock Festival is among the five largest music festivals in Sweden, while the Church Festival in Bonnstan is perhaps the best known annual gathering. Markets, summer theatre and traditional Walpurgis Night and Midsummer celebrations are also well-attended events. See our event calendar for an up-to-date programme of events.
The Meijer Collection
The Meijer Collection is an extensive and growing donation to Skellefteå Municipality by the artist Sture Meijer from Kåge, Skellefteå, parts of which are on display at Nordanå.
The Meijer Collection External link.
Skellefteå Museum
Skellefteå Museum is a county museum of cultural heritage located in Nordanå. The museum is responsible for all museological activities and cultural resources management in the municipalities of Skellefteå, Norsjö and Malå.
Skellefteå Museum Link to external website. External link.
Nordanå exhibition room
Nordanå exhibition room is a place where art associations, study associations, preparatory art schools and individual cultural workers exhibit.
County theatre Västerbottensteatern is located beside Nordanå Park. The theatre has been presenting much-appreciated summer theatre for the entire family since 1987, often open-air productions in the beautiful surroundings of Nordanå. Västerbottensteatern is moving into the new Sara Cultural Centre in autumn 2021.
Västerbottensteatern Link to external website. External link.
The main building at Nordanå is a former school dating from 1916. This elegant building is very much in the style of the Swedish manor house. The area has a long history, including serving as a marketplace and exercise ground.
Also on the site is the inn Nordanågården, built in 1869 as a home for sawmill director JTB Sidén. Adjacent to the inn is a row of outbuildings, originally occupied by sawmill company Skellefteå Ångsågs Aktiebolag of Clemensnäs.
The Nyborg residence is a beautiful listed building erected on its current site in 1764 to house military officers. Beside the Nyborg residence is Kågegården, a well-preserved eighteenth-century cottage that was moved from Kåge to Nordanå in 1928, a typical Västerbotten design with two large rooms either side of an entrance chamber.
If you would like to learn more about the history of Nordanå and its buildings, please visit the Skellefteå Museum website.
Nordanå also marks the start of a beautiful walking and rambling area that follows the Skellefte River passed a number of historic sites. Along the route, you will find Bonnstan, Skellefteå’s church town. There are 116 houses on the site, which dates back to the seventeenth century. The present-day church, a classic cruciform building completed in 1800, is one the largest rural parish churches in Sweden. Continue a little further and you will come to Sweden’s oldest wooden bridge, Lejonströmsbron, which crosses the Skellefte River.
There has been a church town on the site of the present-day Bonnstan since the seventeenth century. Many of the current buildings date back more than 150 years. The church town, which contains 116 wooden houses with a total of 392 chambers, was built by rural parishioners forced to attend mass at the nearby church on Sundays, so that they did not have to travel the long distance to town and back again on the same day. Bonnstan still hosts religious festivals, markets and Midsummer festivities.
Nordanå is a scenic cultural and outdoor leisure district close to Skellefteå city centre. The rolling terrain, cultural-heritage buildings, bird ponds and location on the bank of the Skellefte River give the park a very special character. These days, the area around Nordanå is used for a wide range of activities, including festivals, summer theatre and a Christmas market.
Nordanå also marks the start of a beautiful walking and rambling area that follows the Skellefte River passed a number of historic sites. Along the route, you will find Bonnstan, Skellefteå’s church town. There are 116 houses on the site, which dates back to the seventeenth century. The present-day church, a classic cruciform building completed in 1800, is one the largest rural parish churches in Sweden. Continue a little further and you will come to Sweden’s oldest wooden bridge, Lejonströmsbron, which crosses the Skellefte River.
The area contains a large playground for children of all ages. Opened in 2011, the playground has become a much-appreciated destination for children and young people.
The lawns offer ample space for games and play and there is also a volleyball court which is open to all on a first-come first-served basis.
Artists are the entrepreneurs best equipped to represent our day and age and impel us to broaden our horizons. The presence of art in our public spaces facilitates meetings and brings diversity to our urban environment. This makes our art collection important on a number of levels, as it reflects both our history and our present circumstances.
Axel Nordell: Red Fox, 1972; The Shell, 1972
Educational, aesthetic and inspirational play equipment became highly popular during the 1960s and ‘70s. The artist was keen for children to assimilate the sculptures and ascribe their own meanings to them. They should be able to climb and slide on them but at the same time they should be a shelter or a calm place to daydream. Skellefteå Municipality owns two play sculptures by the artist: Red Fox and The Shell. Both are made of red fibreglass-reinforced plastic over a basic form of concrete, marble and/or chicken wire.
Red Fox is on the playground at Nordanå, while The Shell is located west of the main building.
Marianne Lindberg De Geer: A Study In Unhuman Sexual Expectations, 2007
This sculpture group is made of granite and marble. The works are 1.5 metres in height.
The extremely smooth finish has been achieved by wet grinding the stone.
In explaining the artwork, the artist noted that “after all, rabbits are the very symbol of the fact that we are constantly increasing in number and, hopefully, even these will breed”. As indeed they have. She explains that she chose rabbits in particular because she loves them, while she believes that people tend to overcomplicate things. Rabbits simply are, and they have young when they have them. We humans must first have the right job, at the right salary, and then have the will to have children and take care of them.
The rabbits can be found in the courtyard at Nordanå, the green space opposite the playground.
Percy Andersson: Elk Ship, 1984
Although he also produced other ornamental works, Andersson’s most famous works are his wooden play sculptures that can be seen at various places around Sweden, including Ekerö, Salem south of Stockholm, and Skellefteå. Elk Ship stands outside the inn Nordanågården.
The play sculpture is made from oiled and tarred pine, all the better to withstand the wind and snow of northern Sweden. Still, it has not escaped the impact of both natural and human forces; the elk lost one of its cheeks, but with the aid of a few new screws and a little tar, it was returned to its former glory.
Stina Stärner: Nils Nordlander, 1945
Stina Stärner was born in Skellefteå in 1897 and died in Nora in 1988. She grew up in Skellefteå and graduated from elementary school here. She was a professional sculpture. The artist has sculpted a bust of clergyman Nils Nordlander, considered to be one of the founders of the town of Skellefteå, father of artist Anna Nordlander. The bust is sculpted in artificial stone. Purchased to celebrate the city’s centenary, the bust was placed on the south side of the Nyborg house at Nordanå. The current bust is a copy by Vilho Raninen, commissioned to replace the original work which was badly weather beaten. Stärner worked in several materials in addition to stone and bronze, including terracotta, plaster and concrete, but always with links to sculpture.
Veronica Cornlis-Berg: Facets, 1988
Born in Berlin in 1935, Cornlis-Berg trained at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm from 1980 to 1985. Although she works exclusively as a sculptor, she uses a wide range of materials including steel, copper, brass and marble. The geometric shapes are allowed to represent her ideas. In this way, she strives to express the tension between life and death, harmony and chaos. She has undertaken public commissions in Sweden and abroad. Facets is located in the first of the small ponds in the Nordanå district. Made from polished stainless steel, the work is in the form of a mobile. As the name suggests, it is designed to reflect light from its many surfaces as it stands in the pond. A ball-bearing in the base allows it to rotate in the wind. In a letter in 2010, the artist stated that the correct name of the sculpture is Vertical Composition.
Barbro Hedström: Requiem for Halabja, 1998
Born in Stockholm in 1943, Hedström has worked as a sculptor, illustrator, graphic designer and painter. Through sculptures in clay, bronze and stone, she addresses themes touching on gender and quality of life with equal parts irony, humour and solemnity.
She often draws inspiration from myths. The steel sculpture at Nordanå addresses a topical subject. The artist has explained that she carried a newspaper clipping about the 1988 Halabja Massacre for 10 years, until she came upon the lid to a silo storage tank beneath the snow in a scrapheap at scrap metal merchants Arv. Andersson. That is when the idea for the bottom plate of the sculpture struck her, with its rounded surface like the Earth. The sculpture was produced in collaboration with a sheet metal recycling company. The word requiem in the sculpture’s title refers to the mass performed for the recently deceased. The impulse for the work comes from the artist’s anger and despair over the fate of the Kurds in Halabja, who were attacked with a cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents in 1988 on the orders of Saddam Hussein. In the manufacturing process of the artwork, the launch ramps of rockets have become a joyful harp the artist wants to see played. The sculpture is located north of the main building, between Nordanå and Storgatan.