Blue for You: Swedish artist Bella Rune’s first solo exhibition in Romania to open in Oradea

Blue for You, the first solo exhibition in Romania of Swedish artist Bella Rune, will open mid-November at the Sion Neolog Synagogue in Oradea.

Bella Rune (born in 1971) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. She studied at Chelsea College of Art in London, UK (1995–1998), and Beckman's School of Design in Stockholm (1992–1994). From 2012 to 2021, she was a professor of fine arts, specializing in textiles, at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.

Her sculptures incorporate performative elements as she experiments with different materials and techniques. In her ongoing project Konsekvensanalys, she explores the interface between physical reality and the virtual world through augmented reality. The project has been presented in exhibitions at Munchmuseet, Oslo, Norway (2022), Stadsskogen, Uppsala (2015), Konstmuseet i Norr, Kiruna (2016), Tensta Konsthall (2018), and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia (2018), as well as through a permanent, site-specific public commission at the Stockholm School of Economics (2018).

She co-curated the exhibition Textila undertexter (Textile Subtexts) with Helena Selder, first presented at Marabouparken (2016) and later at Malmö Konstmuseum (2017). For the 2025 exhibition The Magic Power of the Needle at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, she contributed both as an artist and as a curator. The same happened for the exhibition Soft Logic at Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm (2025) and Lunds konsthall (2026).

In 2026, her mobile and textile sculptures were included in an exhibition at Hedvig Eleonora Church in Stockholm and as part of Formes ouvertes at the Institut suédois in Paris, France.

In Romania, Rune’s work has been presented at the 2019 Art Encounters Biennial, curated by Maria Lind and Anca Rujoiu.

The suspended works that will go on display at the Sion Neolog Synagogue are described as “an exercise in balancing shared creation in the present, with history behind us and a responsibility towards future memories.”

The exhibition, set to open on November 14, is organized by the Bihor County Foundation for the Protection of Historical Monuments (Oradea Heritage) in partnership with the Art Encounters Foundation.