Symposium: Iðavöllur – The Worldview of a Generation?

The symposium is held in conjunction with the exhibition Iðavöllur: Icelandic art in the 21st Century, which takes over the whole Hafnarhús. The exhibition showcases new works by fourteen local artists who may be considered to be in the lead for their generation and assumptions can also be made about the larger context of Icelandic and international contemporary art. It offers an insight to what’s brewing among the most prominent artists and reflects subjects and approaches of the present. The symposium is held in Icelandic.

Registration HERE

These artists have shaped the Icelandic art scene at the start of the new century. People of this generation have a unique position because of the junction they stand at: They fall between the X and Y generations, at the birth of the millennium generation. The artists remember a world without internet and smartphones, they experienced the economic collapse and the MeToo revolution, they sense the boundary between geochronological age and the Anthropocene and are faced with a climate catastrophe. They participate in building an art scene which is undergoing a professionalisation with the arrival of art academies, international galleries and art history publications. They represent a generation who deals with increased speed, more flow of information, blurry borders, fluctuating gender, changes in communications, new technology – all while still remembering the way it used to be. In a sense, they are experiencing the end of the world and contributing to a new beginning.

Speakers
Aldís Snorradóttir, exhibition project manager, Reykjavik Art Museum
Hanna Styrmisdóttir, curator and Professor of the MA in Curatorial Practice, Iceland University of the Arts
Jóhannes Dagsson, philosopher, visual artist and Associate Professor at the Department of Fine Art, Iceland University of the Arts
Markús Þór Andrésson, Chief Curator at Reykjavik Art Museum
Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir, art critic and PhD student in Museum Studies, University of Iceland
Ólöf K. Sigurðardóttir, Museum Director, Reykjavík Art Museum
Visual artists Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir, Bjarki Bragason and Páll Haukur Björnsson

Moderator is Kristín Dagmar Jóhannesdóttir, project manager, Reykjavik Art Museum.