The Art Council of Hafnarborg has selected the proposal submitted by Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir from those received during the museum’s open call for Hafnarborg’s next autumn exhibition, scheduled for 2024. The title of the exhibition is Unknown Benevolence, bringing together a group of women and non-binary artists who will exhibit new works alongside older works.
Unknown Benevolence is an excursion hoping to find a truth about the current moment and about art as a healing force, celestial power or even a message from beyond. The exhibition aims to create an organised yet organic whole in Hafnarborg that incites you to heal when need be and take charge when the time is right. Conveying a message of healing that sharpens the mind but softens the heart and nurtures a newfound strength to face hard facts, yet be soft and kind when need be to embrace ideas foreign to one’s own reality. All of this resonating inside you, a micro cosmos that itself aligns with the universe itself.
The exhibition hopes to conjure up healing ancient powers that have been in existence for longer than we could imagine, in order to face our shared history and challenging present circumstances. What the artists then have in common is creating works that speak to these healing forces or creating works in order to heal, which the curator herself likes to think of as presenting an unknown benevolence. The exhibition will take a closer look at this unknown benevolence, which is described by Þórhildur Tinna as being the undercurrent of reality or an energy that is ephemeral, but feels constant at the same time. Furthermore, this constitutes an expansive force in the universe, but also a subtle vibrancy that resonates within you. Always charged with the possibility of positive change and healing.
The participating artists will be announced at a later date.
Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir is an art historian, theorist and curator that is employed at the Icelandic Art Center. There she takes part in the organisation of artist-run biennial Sequences and the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Bienniale as project manager of international projects. She is one of the main organisers of LungA Art Festival in East Iceland, which is presented annually by a group of young cultural practitioners who are equally passionate about visual art and culture. Þórhildur Tinna received her BA degree in art history and theory from the University of Iceland and then went on to finish her postgraduate studies in art and cultural management at King’s College, London, where she focused on curatorial studies and art theory.
This will be the fourteenth exhibition in Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition Series, where the objective is to collaborate with different curators, who get the chance to submit their own proposals, allowing new voices be heard. The Director and Art Council of Hafnarborg then review the submissions and select the winning proposal each year.