At Hafnarborg‘s Autumn Exhibition 2022, high tide – low tide, the focus will be on the shoreline, both grand in scale and home to little lifeforms, delicate flora and diverse rock formations. In this area, the large and fierce clashes with the small and fragile, as the waves crash relentlessly on the shore.
The exhibition features the work of seven artists. Many of them were brought up on islands and all of them come from countries where the sea is one of the wellsprings of society; at once, a way out into the wider world, and a barrier to what lies beyond. They have all stood by the sea, suspended in their powerlessness and strength.
In these current times, facing climate change, one might view the seaboard as a conflict zone. Rising global temperatures are having an immediate effect on ecosystems the world over, as life adjusts to altered conditions. Indeed, rising sea levels impact man-made environments no less than the natural world – but these challenges may bring about the realisation that we need to think of the two as one and the same, serving a common interest.
Rather than making us feel powerless, art can give us the strength to find new ways for survival in a world of constant change. In this way, the exhibition high tide – low tide provokes viewers to rethink their position towards the seashore, bustling with life, by looking at it in a whole new light.
The participating artists are Alda Mohr Eyðunardóttir, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Pétur Thomsen, Stuart Richardson, Studio ThinkingHand (Rhoda Ting and Mikkel Dahlin Bojesen) and Tadashi Ono.
Sigrún Alba Sigurðardóttir is an independent curator and scholar, working in Iceland and Denmark. In recent years, she has curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Iceland, the LÁ Art Museum, the Reykjavík Museum of Photography and Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen. She is currently working on the exhibition Snowflakes and Other Surprises, to be shown at Landskrona Foto, Sweden, as well as curating this year’s autumn exhibition at Hafnarborg. Sigrún Alba is the author of various books and academic papers on photography, contemporary art and history. Indeed, her newest book, Snjóflygsur á næturhimni (Mál og menning, 2022), concerns the interplay between photography, memory and reality.