Tinna Gunnarsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1968. She gained her design education in England, Germany and Italy and has been running her design studio in Reykjavik since 1993. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally. Currently she is a professor at Iceland University of the Arts.
Through everyday objects and design research Tinna reflects on the environment whether it be domestic or the natural. She puts material and technology into unexpected circumstances generating a different perspective, an expanded experience, a twisted context. Her life-long immersions in Icelandic landscapes contribute to her understanding of spatial awareness, formally expressed through material objects.
ABOUT THE WORK
Touching landscape is an ongoing research project where the focus is on the concept of landscape with emphasis on human experience, while sitting within the framework of more-than-human ontology. A central part of it is a case study carried out in Héðinsfjörður, an abandoned fjord sitting on the north coast of Iceland. Although Héðinsfjörður has been inhabited periodically from the settlement of Iceland in the late 9th century until 1951 it only got road connection in autumn 2010. Until then it was a hidden place for most people, concealed behind high mountains and rough sea. Today it is a site in transition. It is at the same time sensational and common, soft and harsh, giving and taking, a place of grace and "terrible beauty" to use philosopher Emily Brady’s expression. It is a site of potentials, but who is going to use it and how will it be used? What does the road connection bring forth, what does it enhance and what is its drawback? And last but no least how can aesthetic engagement in landscape engender environmental awareness?
The three videos Above - In Between - Beat are part of the topological research of Héðinsfjörður where different realities coexist contemporaneously. They mix, split, expand and merge, resulting in a complex web of interaction between human and non-human forces. Each of the three video teases out a particular point of view. Above makes the familiar unfamiliar by altering the human point of view. The bird's eye view recreates our earthly experience of the land and makes the invisible visible. In Between draws attention to the constant interaction of matters and how they simultaneously affect and are affected. It also allows us to peek into the underwater worlds, which are so close to us but far away at the same time. Finally, Beat zooms into the film footage to looking for the constant flux of all matter - the universal heartbeat which never stands still.
During the exhibition a performance will take place (to be announced) where two composers and students of the international masters programme NAIP (New Audiences and Innovative Practice) at the IUA, Khetsin Chuchan and Ana Luisa S. Diaz De Cossio, will perform their work inspired by Gunnarsdóttir´s three video meditations on landscape.