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Ulrika Sparre´s lightbox in the atrium of the school. Photo: Mikael Olsson

I am not useful therefore I am by Ulrika Sparre (2025) is a lightbox installed next to the cafeteria in the school´s atrium.

You may recognize Ulrika Sparre´s art from the big exhibition at the school in the fall of 2024 involving eight works including the artwork ON A CLEAR DAY I CAN SEE FOREVER on the balcony of the main building at Sveavägen 65. (Read more about the exhibition here).

Ulrika Sparre, born 1974, applies her artistic practice to multiple media creating installations, sculpture, photography, film, performance and sound. She was educated at Konstfack in Stockholm and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.

Ulrika writes:
”In my work I investigate the mechanisms, behaviors and social patterns that constitute our lives. I explore subjects like individualism and consumerism, and I am interested in how non-religious and scientific beliefs are expressed in the secularized western society of today. When our religions and collective stories no longer provide us with truth, we must seek it elsewhere. Some of mankind’s most common questions are existential: Lead my life to something?
Does it disappear into nothing?
Commercialization is gaining market shares in a world where our fear of emptiness, loss and existential vertigo has become a commodity. By evoking a collective existential thinking in the individualists mind, we can find our way to create a sustainably future.”

I am not useful therefore I am is a generous donation by former SSE students Louise and John Hedberg.