Just recently, there has been quite a bit of publicity in the media here about a new phenomenon that is rapidly spreading across the country - rondellhundar (Roundabout Dogs). I looked everywhere for a story in English to share, but they were all in Swedish. If you can read Swedish, there is a good article about it in Dagens Nyheter (even if you don't read Swedish, you can look at the pictures of these doggies).




Everything began earlier this year when someone smashed up a dog. Don't worry, it wasn't a living dog, but a concrete piece of art which Linköping council had commissioned a local artist (Stina Opitz) to make. She was to make these concrete statues of a dog, to be placed on the town's traffic roundabouts. This senseless vandalism was reported in the local press and there it probably would have remained, except a group calling itself Akademi Vreta Kloster replaced the statue with a simple home made, plywood dog figure.

Again the local press reported the story and soon after, someone added a concrete "bone" for the dog to chew on. The idea behind replacing the commissioned artwork in this fashion was to protest against the council paying out so much money for something that ordinary people could do.

In a short space of time, these homemade dog figures began appearing at nearby roundabouts in the Linköping area. The dogs were made from a wide variety of materials and with a varying degree of skill and were breeding at an alarming rate. And then the phenomenon began to spread, firstly to areas immediately around Linköping, then later to the whole country. Here is a sample of the doggies from a few towns in Sweden (you can click to make it bigger):




I thought it was a charming and mildly amusing public art display and I've been watching it in action for a month or so. It shows no signs of stopping and more and more are appearing daily. This has caused a few problems and much debate in the national press. Firstly the art bureaucrats stuck their oar in and thought it might be better to just have the statues at one big roundabout and call it something catchy like Dogville. I guess they had their eye on the possible tourist potential.

At this stage, the county museum stepped in and suggested that all the dogs should be removed and placed in an exhibition of their own along the theme of folk art. But the following day when they arrived at the museum, they discovered that someone had blocked the door with a statue of a very unhappy wooden dog. It seems that ordinary people resented the art world's attempt to hijack and institutionalise this popular new pasttime.




Then the highway department intervened and said that the doggies were a hazard as they would distract drivers. Give me a break! What about all those strategically placed billboards for women's lingerie on the street corners? What about sandwich boards outside of shops or neon flashing signs? And why spend money to go around and collect these cute, harmless statues. Wouldn't it be better to spend it on improving the roads instead? And as some of these dogs are rather striking and beautifully done, they add to the scenery rather than jar on the senses.




Eventually, bowing to public pressure, the dogs are staying where they are and it will be interesting to watch over the next few months and see if this can sustain the momentum with which it has began. It has even spread to neighbouring Norway, where a rondellhund was spotted in Kristianstad last week.





A lot of people are hoping it continues to grow and people continue to enjoy contributing to their own cultural experience. Can we make this movement into a worldwide one? I wouldn't be surprised as it appeals to the quirky side of people and gives them a chance to be artists and actually have their work publicly displayed.

And to think all of this began with a wonton piece of random vandalism in a small Swedish town.