Elín Hansdóttir
Peripheral
‘The space is lit up with white light, which consists of red, green and blue light in equal parts. The idea of the project is to introduce an element of surprise, to alter people’s expectations of this apparently ordinary space by way of the multi-coloured shadows that appear when you move through it. I’m interested in the act of paying attention, in the moment when the mind takes possession, as William James defined it in The Principles of Psychology (1890), of “several simultaneously possible trains of thought”. There is a connection between action and perception – perception is a creative receptivity.’
Elín Hansdóttir, June 2007
Elín Hansdóttir’s architectural interventions turn traditional spaces of display and social interaction into sensorial environments that challenge the viewer’s expectations and perceptions. Her lyrical, site-specific installations, which are often barely perceptible, frame the nebulous space of engagement between the work and the spectator, and demonstrate Hansdóttir’s belief that art doesn’t exist without the viewer.
Hansdóttir presented a light installation that transformed the entrance to the fair. The neutral white light with which artworks are customarily illuminated was broken into its spectral elements and this simple passageway lent the form of a modern-day Plato’s cave.
Elín Hansdóttir (b.1980) is an Icelandic artist based in Reykjavik. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Taking Time’, Sequences Realtime Festival, Reykjavik; ‘Book Space’, Jugendbibliothek Zeisehalle, Hamburg (both 2006) and ‘Untitled (Nafnlaust)’, Reykjavik Arts Festival’ (2005). Recent group exhibitions include: ‘Between The Two Deaths’, ZKM Karlsruhe (2007) and ‘New Icelandic Art II’, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik (2005).
