The sculpture Syrian horse was placed in Uddevalla, Sweden, in 2019. At first it was borrowed by Uddevalla municipality. Soon it became so popular among the inhabitants which led to a fundraising to enable a public purchase of the sculpture. The aim of this essay was to analyze the process of how a public art work, a sculpture, was procured form the perspective of three actors; the procurer, the artist and the viewer. The following methods were used: qualitative interview with the artist, public document from the procurer Uddevalla municipality, observation of the sculpture in situ with photo documentation, and telephone conversation with the former antiquarian in Uddevalla municipality. Sculpture theory based on Rosalind Krauss and Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe was central for the analysis. Furthermore, semiotic with Roland Barthes´s concepts denotation and connotation, Ferdinand de Saussure´s concepts expression and content and Charles Sanders Pierces´s concept iconic sign was central. For contextualization of the horse as a motive, different types of horse sculptures were used for comparison. The result shows that for the procurer, no policy or guidelines for public art within the municipality existed to procure public art. The success factors were committed officials, network contacts and being on the right place in the right time. For the artist, the site where the sculpture was placed was of great importance, which was one aspect of realizing his vision of the artwork. Also, the form and technique made the sculpture successful. The viewers turned out to be an important part of the process by visiting the sculpture on site, activities on social media and started a fundraising to enable a public procurement of the sculpture. Also, the artist lowered the price of the sculpture to meet the viewers engagement. Finally, the presence of policy or guidelines for public art within the municipality to procure public art cannot be seen as a determinant. Other sources of funding for public art should be investigated. Several aspects in the composition of the Syrian horse indicate that it is contemporary art, e.g. aspects of globalization, integration and gender.

Humans and horses weaved together wonderful stories of adventure and generosity. As a part of human history and civilization, Arabian horses ignite imagination throughout the world. Populations of this breed exist in many countries. Here I explored different populations of Arabians representing Middle Eastern and Western populations. The main two aims of this study were to provide the genetic diversity description of Arabians from different origins and to examine the traditional classification system of the breed. A third aim was to tackle the distribution pattern of the genetic variability within the genome to show whether there are differences in relative variability of different types of markers. First, I analyzed the genetic structure of 537Arabian horses from seven populations by using microsatellites. The results consistently showed higher levels of diversity within the Middle Eastern populations compared to the Western populations. All American-Arabians showed differentiation from Middle Eastern populations. Second, I sequenced the whole mtDNA D-loop of 251 Arabian horses. The whole D-loop sequence was more informative than using just the HVR1. Native populations from the Middle East, such as Syrian, represented a hot spot of genetic diversity. Most importantly, there was no evidence that the Arabian horse breed has clear subdivisions depending on the traditional maternal based strain classification system. Third, I tested the heterozygosity distribution pattern along the genome of 22 Peruvian Paso horses using 232 microsatellites and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). The pattern of genetic diversity was completely different between these two markers where no correlation was found. Runs of homozygosity test of SNPs and associated microsatellites noticeably showed that all of associated microsatellites loci were homozygous in the matched case. The findings of this study will help in understanding the evolutionary history and developing breeding and conservation programs of horses. This study provided databases including parentage testing system and maternal lineages that will help to recover the Syrian Arabian population after the armed conflict started in Syria in 2011. The results here can be applied not only to horses, but also to other animal species with similar criteria.