Solo exhibition.
Hanna Kristín Birgisdóttir’s exhibition Silent Act comprises of two sculptures, both of which are somewhat confounding in their material form. A squared-off length of timber sits atop trestles, its ends covered in soil. Some of the same material has dropped to the floor. A circular hole runs along its internal length. Nearby are two rods, which also bear evidence of the soil on their surface, and are mounted on the wall. Across the gallery, on a shelf, is a long cylindrical deposit of soil. The back length of the gallery has been transformed into a bricolage tennis court; its net appears to have been adapted from a fishing-net and is held up by cut-off logs and sections of timber. But most incongruous is the soil scattered around the court. An explanation for this presence is suggested in a series of photographs which show a tennis racket hitting a mud ball and exploding on contact.
Entering the gallery is like coming upon the scene of recently ceased activities. The evidence for determined actions is present but its instigators have departed. From the accumulation of artefacts it is possible to understand something of what has gone on here, but what is not evident is the intention of the actions. The evidential remains appear confounding but are not exactly absurd. We understand the logical forms of those acts–we know of industrial extraction and the rules of tennis, but in these forms the narrative has gone askew. Perhaps the two sculptures belong to a single narrative structure but confirmation of such conjectures is unlikely to occur. All that there is that which there is evidence for.
Curator: Gavin Morrison.
Hanna Kristín Birgisdóttir, b. 1989, lives and works in Reykjavík. Hanna graduated with BA degree from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2014. Recent exhibitions include: Like a breath being compressed into a high pitched sound, Kling&Bang, Reykjavík, a part of Sequences Art Festival 2015, Svona, svona, svona, Safnahúsið in Reykjavík, 2014 and Rottan á Hjalteyri, Verksmiðjan in Hjalteyri, 2014.
