Ágústa Kristófersdóttir, Director of Hafnarborg, talks about the exhibition Silent Spring, by artists Hertta Kiiski, Katrín Elvarsdóttir and Lilja Birgisdóttir. The exhibition opened last January as a part of The Icelandic Photography Festival 2020 and the curator is Daría Sól Andrews.

In the exhibition, Lilja, Hertta and Katrín invoke a tender warmth towards nature, while calling attention to the effects of our wasteful practices on the earth. Working in the face of climate change, they then employ the photographic medium and a sculptural, sensory focus to environments which call for a nurturing attention.

The exhibition was extended until mid-May, given current circumstances, but since the museum is currently closed, we hope you will enjoy the exhibition here instead.

Captions available in English and Icelandic.

Unfortunately, this month‘s Midday Concert cannot go on, due to the ban on public gatherings, but we wish to share with you a song instead, to brighten up your day, so shortly before Easter.

Here, Gissur Páll Gissurarson, tenor, and Antonía Hevesi, pianist and artistic director of the Hafnarborg Midday Concert Series, perform the aria “Una furtiva lagrima” from the opera L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti.

We are looking forward to seeing you again at our Midday Concerts in the near future – when this too shall pass.

At the exhibition, works by artist Þórdís Jóhannesdóttir entered into dialogue with works by Ralph Hannam, an amateur photographer who was active in Iceland in the mid-twentieth century. Even though the exhibition may be over, you now get a chance to experience it online, through this tour, where Ágústa Kristófersdóttir, Director of Hafnarborg, talks about its foundation, the artistic process and select works in the exhibition.

We would like to thank everyone who visited Hafnarborg for the exhibition, while it was on view, and hope that everyone will enjoy seeing it here – both those of you who are seeing it for the first time and those who have seen it before. We would also like to urge you to draw inspiration from the artists’ approach and look for interesting angles in your surroundings, in your daily life.

Captions available in English and Icelandic.

Hafnarborg and The Icelandic Visual Art Copyright Association have now signed a contract regarding the digital publication of images of the museum collection in electronic databases.

This allows Hafnarborg to publish images of all registered pieces in the collection through the museum collection database Sarpur, granting the public more access to information on the Hafnarborg Collection.

Accordingly, we are working on making the images of the Hafnarborg Collection, which have until now not been accessible to the public, available through Sarpur.

The grants awarded from The Museum Fund (safnasjóður) and The Visual Arts Fund (myndlistarsjóður), have been made known for the year 2020. Hafnarborg expresses its gratitude for the grants awarded to projects at the museum. From The Museum Fund, Hafnarborg received a grant for two projects: Hafnarborg and The Health Town (1,500,000 ISK) and Images in Open Access – a Contract with The Icelandic Visual Art Copyright Association (800,000 ISK). Work on both projects is already in progress.

In cooperation with The Hafnarfjörður Museum and others, Hafnarborg was also awarded with a special grant (öndvegisstyrkur) for one project: Collaboration on Museum Education – Policy and Implementation (12,000,000 ISK, over four years).

From The Visual Arts Fund, Hafnarborg received grants for two exhibition projects: Exhibition of Urban Soundscapes by Davíð Brynjar Franzson, Composer, Curated by Þráinn Hjálmarsson (300,000 ISK) and Catalogue for an Exhibition of Works by Þorvaldur Þorsteinsson, in Collaboration with The Akureyri Art Museum (500,000 ISK).

Moreover, the curators of the 2020 autumn exhibition, Becky Forsythe and Penelope Smart, were awarded a grant of 800,000 ISK for production of the exhibition The Wildflower, which will focus a futuristic lens on our human desire to know nature.

Grants, such as these, serve an important role in enabling the programme of Hafnarborg to thrive and have a positive impact on the community, with noteworthy projects, as well as providing a space for creative thought and expression to prosper.

Hafnarborg and the town of Hafnarfjörður have lent their support to the project Tónagull po polsku (Tónagull in Polish), which will offer weekly music workshops for Polish-speaking children and their parents in Hafnarborg, beginning on Sunday March 8th. The project is also supported by the Polish Embassy in Iceland.

Tónagull is a research-based music workshop method developed by prof. Helga Rut Guðmundsdóttir, designed to fit the needs of infants, 0-3 years old, and their parents. The first Tónagull workshop was held in 2004 and they have been organized continuously since then, attracting hundreds of Icelandic families every year. The workshops take place once a week and have a playful formula, engaging musically both the toddlers and the adult participants. From the beginning, the material has mostly been based on Icelandic folk songs and nursery rhymes, i.e. the native language of the participants.

In 2019, the first Polish language version of Tónagull was launched. Preserving the methodic framework of the Icelandic original workshops and some of the original songs with translated lyrics, the workshops incorporate traditional Polish children’s songs, popular folk melodies and nursery rhymes. Tónagull po polsku immediately gained high popularity among members of the Polish community in Iceland.

More information on the music workshops, dates and time, registration and more, can be found here in Polish.

Please note that the workshops are temporarily off, in light of present circumstances.

On March 11th, Hafnarborg received The Icelandic Music Award 2020 for The Music Event of the Year (Single Event), in the field of classic and contemporary music, for the opening concert of the exhibition Phonemes, which was a part of the programme of Dark Music Days.

Hafnarborg would like to thank percussionist Jennifer Torrence, for an unforgettable interpretation of the works of Tom Johnson and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir, and curator Þráinn Hjálmarsson, for his exceptional work. We also thank all the artists who took part in the exhibition and participated in the event programme connected with it.

It is not every day that an art museum receives a music award, but music has been an important part of the Hafnarborg programme since the early years. This award is an incentive for us to continue on this path.

Thank you all!

Phonemes – Exhibiting Music, which took place at Hafnarborg from January 26th–March 3rd of last year, has been nominated as The Music Event of the Year (Single Event) in the field of classic and contemporary music at The Icelandic Music Awards 2020. The judges‘ statement about the nomination says the following: „An exiting and original exhibition with a captivating opening concert. Working with the interplay of music and space, Jennifer Torrence‘s performance of Nine Bells by Tom Johnson was particularly successful.“

The exhibition celebrated the fifth anniversary of the concert series of the same name, which is dedicated to contemporary music and has been a part of the Hafnarborg programme since 2013. At the opening of the exhibition, Jennifer Torrence performed Nine Bells, as mentioned in the judges‘ statement, but the performance of the same work at the concert series in autumn 2016 (then by Frank Aarnink) was the spark that would later lead to the exhibition, where music and visual arts encountered each other in the timeless space of the museum.

The artists participating in the exhibition were Ásta Ólafsdóttir, Steina, Steinunn Eldflaug Harðardóttir, Logi Leó Gunnarsson, Jón Gunnar Árnason, James Saunders, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir, Magnús Pálsson, Tom Johnson, Curver Thoroddsen and Einar Torfi Einarsson. The curator was Þráinn Hjálmarsson, composer and artistic director of the concert series.

In connection with the exhibition, there was also an extensive programme of concerts, musical events and performances, featuring local and foreign artists and musicians, such as Haraldur Jónsson, Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Marko Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg, Skerpla, Berglind M. Tómasdóttir and more. The events were also a part of the programme of Dark Music Days, receiving four nominations at this year‘s award ceremony.

Hafnarborg sends sincere thanks to the judges and affiliates of The Icelandic Music Awards for the honour shown to the institution, as well as the participants of the exhibition.

Friday February 7th at 6 p.m.–11 p.m., Museum Night will take place in Hafnarborg, during which time the exhibitions will be open and a number of events will occur, such as a concert, a workshop, guided tours and more. The museum will be teeming with life, as the focus of the events and the exhibitions is on the relationship between man and nature or the interplay between light and shadows.

Programme:

Kl. 18:00
Opening Concert with The Hafnarfjörður Music School, performing a programme
of select film scores

Kl. 19:00
Light and Shadow Workshop for children and their parents, under the guidance
of Berglind Jóna Hlynsdóttir, artist

Kl. 20:00
Guided tour of the exhibitions Far and Silent Spring,
with Ágústa Kristófersdóttir, Museum Director

Kl. 21:00
“Scent of Spring” with Lilja Birgisdóttir,
artist and participant in the exhibition Silent Spring

Kl. 22:00
Guided tour of the exhibitions Far and Silent Spring,
with Ágústa Kristófersdóttir, Museum Director

There will also be a book market at Hafnarborg, where various books from the museum shop will be sold at a special price. In addition, guests can participate in a special Museum Night Scavenger Hunt, for the chance of reward. Later in the evening, singer Guðrún Árný leads a sing-along at Krydd Restaurant and there is Happy Hour at the bar from nine until midnight.

For more information about the events, please click here.

The Art Council of Hafnarborg has selected The Wildflower as the autumn exhibition of 2020, from a number of excellent proposals submitted at the end of last year, but the winning proposal was submitted by curators Becky Forsythe and Penelope Smart. The Wildflower focuses a futuristic lens — sensitive and searching — on our human desire to know nature. Through this lens, audiences re-engage a swell of complex emotions and an acute awareness of our fragile world and our place in it. Working with artists from Iceland and Canada, the curators cultivate new space for a dynamic collision of climate activism, feminism and craft-based practice in contemporary art. Urging forward a renewed interest in traditional materials connected to local culture, artists transform wood, marble, plant dye, flowers, metal into new visions of textile, sculpture, painting and stained glass armour.

The conceptual vision for the exhibition is that of an open “field” in a northern landscape. In the expansive gallery space, audiences will encounter familiar yet unusual representations of flowers and nature: large, small, otherworldly, imaginative, disorienting, empowering. Our human relationship to nature is in flux, unfathomable and fantastical, felt as both a gendered and androgynous transformative power in this futuristic yet fragile field — a source of productive tension and enchantment within the size, scale and materials of the works.

The Wildflower has evolved out of the curators’ shared interest in climate change as an empowering phenomenon, natural materials and craft traditions in contemporary art, as well as new forms of representation in northern landscape. These genres also align in new and meaningful ways to emerging concepts of nature, power and the feminine. Envisioned as an innovative and female-led curatorial platform for all audiences, The Wildflower explores themes and materials related to innocence, violence, colonization, action, force and gentleness in powerful union with the innate qualities of nature, raising the question: how can that which is deeply familiar — our delicate flora clinging to rock — take root in new stories?

Becky Forsythe is a curator, writer and cultural worker. She holds a BFA Visual Art from York University (2007), an MA from University of Manitoba (2011) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Museum and Gallery Studies from Georgian College (2014). Her work focuses on varied systems of nature, collecting and acts of care, as well as placing value on collaboration in diverse spaces, situations and sensitivities. From 2015-2018 she held the position of Collection Manager at the Living Art Museum, where she led a number of projects and exhibitions, including Distant Matter (2018), Rolling Line (2017, co-curator) and Between mountain and tide (2018, co-curator). For Forsythe an exhibition is equally tangible and intangible, being a site of exchange, action and renewal.

Penelope Smart is a curator and writer. She holds an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCADU (2013), where she received the President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies. Smart has held curatorial positions at The Art Gallery of Ontario, MULHERIN galleries (Toronto and New York) and Eastern Edge Gallery (St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador). Her writing has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine and n.paradoxa, among others. With a focus on young artists at the beginning stages of their careers, Smart approaches exhibitions as a place of risk-taking, life and mystery.

The participating artists will be announced at a later date.