Saturday November 27th at 2 p.m., artist Katrín Elvarsdóttir and curator Daría Sól Andrews will welcome guests to a talk about the exhibition Songbirds, which is currently on view in the lower gallery of Hafnarborg.
The exhibition presents new works by the artist dating back to her visit to Havana, Cuba. Wielding her camera, she walked the streets of the city, where she noticed that many islanders keep songbirds in cages in their homes. This custom may then raise questions about freedom or the lack of it, not least considering the history of the island which has long been defined by restrictions and isolation. One may even wonder if the Cubans feel a certain affinity with the birds, seeing as their own movements are restricted and controlled. In any case, all of us ought to be able to connect to this isolation today, when our current global predicament has caused so many of us to feel trapped and caged, no matter where we find ourselves in the world.
Katrín Elvarsdóttir completed a BFA degree from the Art Institute in Boston in 1993. She has had many solo exhibitions, both in Iceland and abroad, including The Search for Truth at BERG Contemporary in 2018, Double Happiness at Gerðarsafn in 2016, Vanished Summer at Deborah Berke, New York, in 2014 and Neverland at the Reykjavík Art Museum in 2010. Katrín’s works have also been featured in many group exhibitions, including Silent Spring at Hafnarborg in 2020. Four books have previously been published featuring Katrín’s photographs and Songbirds, which will be published alongside this exhibition, will be her fifth. Katrín has been nominated for various awards, like the EIKON Award in 2017, Deutsche Börse Photographic Prize in 2009 and the Honorary Award of the Icelandic Visual Art Copyright Association.