Current exhibition

Varvara & Mar - Ask Anything

June 13 – Sept 6 2026

As part of OpenArt 2026, Örebro Art Gallery presents a major exhibition featuring the artist duo Varvara & Mar. Since 2009, the duo has worked at the intersection of art, technology, and social systems, with a particular focus on how digital structures shape the conditions of our lives.

In the exhibition Ask Anything, attention is directed toward artificial intelligence both as a tool and as a power structure. Through interactive installations, Varvara & Mar reveal the often invisible processes in which algorithms are used to evaluate, monitor, and steer human behavior. Decisions are increasingly delegated to technologies that appear neutral, yet in practice reinforce existing power relations.

The exhibition moves within the tension between technological fascination and critical inquiry. The works expose the mechanisms underlying the digital world and raise questions about responsibility, transparency, and agency in a time when human experiences are increasingly translated into data.

In the work Keep Smiling, visitors encounter an AI model that claims to read emotions and determine human significance. It becomes clear that the technology is both unreliable and influential in shaping how we are judged. By participating in the piece, visitors make visible how our attention and emotions are collected and used as a form of value in the digital age.

In another work, Needle in a Haystack, a robot is tasked with the seemingly impossible challenge of finding a needle in a haystack, signaling its success by ringing a bell. With understated humor, the piece exposes the limitations of technology and the myth of artificial intelligence as all‑knowing and autonomous.

Ask Anything opens up a reflection on what is at stake when technological systems are granted increasing authority, and which perspectives risk being marginalized in an increasingly algorithm‑driven reality.