BIRNA BIRNA BIRNA

BIRNA BIRNA BIRNA Á. Birna Björnsdóttir

Visual artist based in Amsterdam/Reykjavík.
Recepient of the Artist Start Grant from the Mondriaan Fonds 2020.
Email for portfolio or full CV.

hi@bbbirna.info
Instagram: @b__i__r__n__a

Co-creator of recidency project/artist summer camp Laumulistasamsteypan with Helena Aðalsteinsdóttir and Arna María Kristjánsdóttir.

Co-creator and co-curator of GSM exhibition space in frequencies with Helena Aðalsteinsdóttir.

Co-creator of at7 project space.

Upcoming:

LungA Festival, solo exhibtion, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, 2023.

Solo exhibition, OPEN project space, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2023.

Selected exhibitions and events:

The Messengers at the group exhibition 'Eavesdrop - my friends fill in the silence', SET Lewisham, London, 2023.

The publication SLEEP MODE published by Artfinger Pub, 2022.

Einnar nætur gaman - this is not a private party, event and exhibition with Laumulistasamsteypan, Open project space, Reykjavík, Iceland, 2022.

Anthems of the Windpipe, Laumulistasamsteypan's summer camp, Hrisey, Iceland, 2022.

A Twitch and a Tug at Prospects, group exhibition by Mondriaan Fonds at Art Rotterdam, 2022.

Snertitaug solo exhibition at the Reykjavik Art Museum, 2022.

Tumble-humble-weed at Happyhour Gallerí, 2022.

All These Elephants exhibited in the group show Architecture of Goodbye at Laurel Project Space, 2021.

I feel asleep, solo exhibition as a part of the series 'Messages from the Deep' by GSM exhibition space in frequencies and Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee radio, 2021.

Kept Between the Toes at Sterrentuin ii, group exhibition, Den Haag, 2021.

Ten of Moods with Bergur Anderson at the Pole, 2021, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Greetings Across the Ocean, group exhibition, The North Atlantic House, 2020, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Jeopardy, exhibition with Laumulistasamsteypan, 2020, Palanga Street Radio.

Anomia, a night of moving images by artists, Kling og Bang, 2020.

The Goatcast, online screenings by Cashmere Radio, 2020.

Comp Ass at Art Rotterdam, 2020.

Hvers vegna syngja fuglar? / Why do birds sing?, as a part of Haustlaukar / Autumn Bulbs by Reykjavík Art Museum, 2019. Exhibited at Vesturbæjarlaug and Breiðholtslaug, Reykjavík, Iceland.

The All Seeing Ad, exhibited in Cosmos Carl - platform parasite, 2019.

Jester's Pool Laumulistasamsteypan, Middlesex Presents project space, 2019, London, the UK.

Four Cups: Spheres of Substantial Solidity and Precarious Subliminal Stimuli - A Conference, made in collaboration with Susan van Veen, at7 project space, 2018, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

KAFFIPÁSA, 6 day coffee-break by Laumulistasamsteypan, the Living Art Museum, 2018, Reykjavík, Iceland.

To that special someone, anniversary show of at7 project space, 2018, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Ég hef þig í vasanum / I got you, in Djúpþrýstingur, the Living Art Museum, 2018, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Allir þessir fílar I & II / All these Elephants I & II at Sequences Art Festival, 2017, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Texts and publications:

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee podcast, an interview with Arif Kornweitz and Andrea Gonzalez, 2023.

A two part text written to accompany the two part exhibition Universal Sugar by Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, Listasafn ASÍ, 2019, Garðabær/Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland.

I found an atom in my sock the other day, in Bæklingar / Pamphlet exhibition at OPEN, 2018, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Three Snakes and Four Obsessions, a youtube-playlist and text written for Art in America Magazine to accompany a profile written by Brian Droitcour, Art in America, December issue 2017.

How rocks move? They don't move - The rocks don't move., essay 2016. Á. Birna Björnsdóttir (she/her, 1990, IS) is a visual artist based in Amsterdam/Reykjavík.

For her installations she uses materials of various consistencies, for example; potatoes, metals, sound, electricity, smart phones and sunlight. She looks for a certain quality in materials, as if they exist on the verge of perception; the intangible, invisible and indiscernible play an important role in her work contrasted with the solid, voluminous and technological.

Birna is interested in collaboration as a broad term wherein she can merge with another creative flow, be it another person, organization, system, or environment. Aiming to deepen her co-working with materials such as electricity, electro-magneticity, water, sunlight and frequencies, treating collaboration as material and materials as collaborators.

Solar energy and smart phones regularly appear in Birna’s work and questions around how technology enters our daily life and where it meets or melts into nature. She’s intrigued by how our online lives are rooted in material reality and how the same energy source can simultaneously feed a growing plant and send an email.

Over the last few years Birna has been carrying out a research project called How to Grow a Phantom Limb, where she explores the more personal notions of the intangible in relation to her own body. This research unfolds in a practice of daily movement, visualization and writing that has become a departing point for her recent works. Through the phantom limb growing she aims to tap into a more embodied sort of knowledge, weaving into her work the feeling of something that was previously only understood through intellect.

Birna has been a part of running Laumulistasamsteypan, ‘a summer camp and network for restless artists’, since 2014. Through Laumulistasamsteypan, community has steadily become more important to her practice: the vulnerability, trust, playfulness and generosity involved in co-creating and co-existing.