Reimagining the present
In the small town of Bengtsfors in western Sweden, there is a park that most people have stopped noticing. Folkpark Valhall opened in 1929 and once drew visitors from across the region for concerts, dances, and community events. Today its gates are locked unless something is scheduled. Its buildings need repair. Its association struggles to find volunteers.
This project asks whether design can help bring it back. Not by arriving with a finished plan, but by starting where it matters most: with the people, their memories, and their right to reimagine what their surroundings could become.
Working with teenagers at the local youth centre, imagination-based workshops using collage and drawing were used to open up ideas about space, safety, and belonging. Their responses informed a scale model of the park and an exhibition that holds its history and leaves its future open.
What you see here is the beginning of that process; it is not the answer, but the spark.