The Ugliest Place in the City

The light art installation The Ugliest Place in the City is being created on the basis of suggestions from Oulu residents and a public vote. Residents were invited to nominate the ugliest places in their hometown, and the passageway next to the Autosaari car park was chosen in the public vote.

The work by light and lighting designer Katja Muttilainen is part of her The Ugliest Place in the City series, in which places that residents find unpleasant are made visible in a new way by means of light.

Just round the corner from Autosaari once stood Oulu’s fashion ‘Mecca’ and, before that, a well-known fabric and sewing supplies shop. The artwork draws on the site’s history and highlights the foundation of fashion and craftsmanship: the thread from which the whole is built, stitch by stitch.

The work was designed by lighting designer and lighting lecturer Katja Muttilainen. The Ugliest Place in the City has previously been staged in Jyväskylä and Tartu, Estonia.