Blue and Yellow — Areej Almansory

Gallery visitors stand in front of a long blue and yellow painting covered in handwritten names, places and messages, hung on a white wall.

Outdoors on a paved square, a woman in a headscarf and two children kneel over a long white canvas laid on the ground, drawing and writing on it in marker beside a patch of yellow paint. Market stalls and a brick building stand behind them.

Outdoors, an adult and a small child in winter clothes crouch together to paint yellow and blue marks on a long white canvas on the pavement, while another person watches.

Several people kneel along both sides of a long canvas on a public square, painting broad blue and yellow strokes and writing place names including “Chicago” on the white surface.

Detail of the finished canvas: layers of yellow, blue and white paint overwritten by hand with place names such as Uppsala and Linköping and messages including “WE ARE ALL HUMANS”.

Detail of the finished canvas: blue and yellow paint with a small painted Swedish flag, surrounded by handwritten contributions including “HUMANS CANT BE ILLEGAL” and names of towns and countries.

Documentation of Blue and Yellow.

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Blue and Yellow is a participatory painting and installation that explores national identity and belonging through collective artistic action. The project was initiated in public space at Gustav Adolfs Torg in Helsingborg, where members of the public were invited to reflect on what Sweden means to them.

Using the colors of the Swedish flag — blue and yellow — participants painted their thoughts, emotions, and personal stories directly onto the canvas. These individual contributions became part of a shared visual surface, transforming the artwork into a collective expression of lived experience.

The work was later exhibited at Arvika Konsthall and the Swedish American Museum in Chicago, where visitors continued to engage with the piece by adding written reflections on migration, identity, and integration. Through this ongoing participation, Blue and Yellow developed into a layered dialogue across different cultural and geographical contexts, connecting personal narratives with broader questions of home, movement, and belonging.

Documentation of Blue and Yellow.