Bigert & Bergström: Solar Egg, published by Art and Theory, is dedicated to a work of art by Swedish artists Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström, which is at the same time a spectacular public artwork and a fully functioning sauna. The fascinatingly illustrated book goes through the stages of the artwork, a golden egg called the Solar Egg, all the way from rough sketches to the final, finished work.

While the works of Bigert & Bergström often touch on serious issues of social and environmental sustainability, humour plays an essential part in their practice. The idea for the ‘Solar Egg’ arose from the ongoing geographical repositioning of the city of Kiruna in northern Sweden. It is a fully functioning sauna, developed as a public artwork that would engage the community of Kiruna and is to be seen as a platform for discussion as well as a place for reflection. This book chronicles the making of the artwork from rough sketches to the final piece.