In Hafnarborg’s Sverrissalur artist Sigga Björg Sigurðardóttir has created an installation where we get to meet Rósa and learn about her background and history. The installation is comprised of drawings, sculptures and a video, accompanied by an aggressive soundscape. Rósa is of an undetermined species but she has to deal with human emotions and circumstances. We sense her desolation and desperation, while we also see her mature and literally form herself. Her loneliness is tangible and her sadness obvious. In the end, it seems like her world shatters while she plays the harp with a combination of melancholy and recklessness.
Sigga Björg’s drawings in the space are both created beforehand and in situ and the artist focuses on linking the worlds of the video, the drawings and the space to make a single entity. Some of the drawings on display here were made last autumn in The Laholm Drawing Museum in Sweden, during preparations for an exhibition there. In that way, Sigga Björg tends to let her works return to the whole once her exhibitions are over and then she may divide them again into new parts, all depending on the demands of the projects ahead. The aspects of her visual world are interconnected like that, but they can be arranged to tell different stories.
The characters we meet here are a gallery of unbridled emotions, which they express frequently in a course manner. The colour, which is their element, drips and runs and splashes all over the room as they are formed. The characters, which are neither humans nor animals, demonstrate the animalistic nature of humans and the human nature of animals. The upheaval is horrific and funny at the same time.
The mobile sculptures play a primary role in the video about Rósa and the end result is governed by coincidence, like other creations by Sigga Björg, with the creative process being a part of the work. This goes for both the characters and the stories, which come alive as soon as they are created. The process is not controlled – there is no script – coincidence and atmosphere create the characters’ looks, the links between them and the narratives, which are founded by chance rather than by a predetermined projection. Sigga Björg has said that she lets go and often manages to surprise herself in her work. Her playfulness touches the audience, both through her imagery and the soundscapes.
Like with the characters’ emotions, craft and skill are often at odds. Sigga Björg works both fast and slow, meticulously and precisely but also in a sort of frenzy, letting the wildness take over. This unbridled process is quite evident in her works and the emotional upheaval is tangible in the narrative.
Sigga Björg Sigurðardóttir was born in Reykjavik in 1977. She graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2001 and completed her MFA-degree at Glasgow School of Art in 2004. Sigga Björg has held several solo and group exhibitions internationally and her works have been acquired by museums in Iceland and abroad.