Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Side 12

12 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | Feature
Graduation Exhibition –
Creativity, cleverness and noise filled the Reyk-
javík Art Museum at Kjarvalsstaðir last month
when graduate students from the Iceland Acad-
emy of the Arts invaded the museum. For two
weeks, 63 students graduating from graphic,
product and fashion design, visual arts and ar-
chitecture displayed their final projects and used
every bit of space, inside and even outside the
museum, to present their creations. The exhibi-
tion was a huge success, but more than 11,000
people visited the museum to view the latest in-
novations in art and design. Grapevine contact-
ed a couple of students and found out about the
ideas behind their projects.
1.
“‘Góða mamma’ (Mommy Dearest) is an installation
and video where a giant ball of yarn is grotesquely
placed upon a woman’s body, handicapping her as she
tries to go about her daily duties in the modern, linear,
masculine environment of business and managing.
The ball of yarn is a feminine symbol, representing
among other things the domestic heritage and irrevo-
cable motherhood and acts as a counterpoint to all
the square, sharp and dark shapes of its environment.
It also makes for an amusing visual experience, kind of
sad and amusing at the same time. I also used sound
to amplify the hindrances our protagonist encounters,
including a tea-kettle adding sinister and domestic
suspense to the whole setting.”
Svala Ragnarsdóttir – Art
2.
Culture and Nature Centre in Álftanes.
One of the main goals in the new urban planning for
Álftanes is to create a living environment with all the
services that are needed for a small town like Álftanes.
The location of the Culture and Nature Centre is an ex-
tension of the existing plan and is situated at the end
of the main street. The entrance of the culture centre
is therefore a beginning of the new urban plan.
The location is also well suited to connect the existing
paths that wind around Álftaness to the culture cen-
tre. The house has therefore two entrances, one that
extends itself into the main street and takes a part in
the urban environment, and then another that serves
the purpose of connecting the cultural centre to the
nature of Álftanes. In that way the house is working
both with the existing environment and the urban
plan.
Bergur Þorsteinsson - Architecture
3.
“My exhibit is entitled ‘Nang Jáadaas’, which means
The Woman in the Haida language. The Haida are a
First Nations tribe that have lived on and around the
Queen Charlotte islands of the northwest coast of
Canada for thousands of years. My project sprung
from my B.A. thesis, in which I explored the formal
and technical principles which govern the native art
of the northwest coast. My exhibit is a triptych of il-
lustrations in this style, which display my personal
‘crest’ of sorts, the women in my life and their signifi-
cance to me.”
Sigurður Oddsson – Graphic Design
4.
“Belonging to an on-going series called ‘Babel Bible’,
this Last Judgment is my personal interpretation of
the dramatic Bible episode; playing with the classic
models of representations of the episode, I present
these scenes in a surrealistic and humoristic way and
try to divert this visual tradition in order to add my
personal language and messages.
‘The Last Judgment’, consists in seven photographs
that are presented like an altar. We see the scene of
the judgment, heaven and hell, the travel of humans
towards the two different places, and two angels look-
ing at the viewer of the work. Through these different
scenes and symbols, I want to create layers of mean-
ing and ask questions. For example, this work shows
the absurdity of the dogmatic division between hell
and heaven, heaven and hell being illusions and repli-
cas. It addresses a critic of narcissism, a phenomenon
of our society that is linked to our use of the media,
and then it tries to question the viewer to ask him/
herself the value of a situation, but also his/her way of
looking at artworks.
Being a work for a graduation exhibition, my work
asks also the values, the seriousness of the event it-
self, but also comes back to the whole idea of judg-
ment: in school, in art.
Etienne de France – Art
5.
“Krossgata: (2-7) deep space / in your face - a window-
box.
July 1969: Michael Collins goes alone 30 times around
the moon – 59 hours, 30 minutes, 25.79 seconds. (He
never felt lonely)”
Páll Haukur Björnsson – Art
6.
The floor lamp ‘Illuminant’ is made in our belief that
all our thoughts and doings come back to us. The
lampshade is made of reflective material, and hangs
from the ceiling in a fish-line. The light-bulb is placed
in a little foot on the floor and over that is a grating
with plastic film in various colours. You choose the
colour you prefer and place it over the light, and the
lampshade gives you back your colour.
Kristín Birna Bjarnadóttir – Product Design
7.
“This collection is a story about a woman who is sen-
sual, sexy and fragile so she dresses in heavy armour
to be able to make it in the brutal world we live in. The
colours are black, silver, off-white and fleshy pink. The
models wore corsets and bum-rolls to exaggerate their
feminine curves and make their legs appear longer.”
Arna Sigrún Haraldsdóttir – Fashion Design
8.
‘Growing Jewellery’ is a redefinition of modern day
values. It’s a clash of jewellery and gardening – cou-
ture and organism. It is a collection of hand jewellery,
which is designed for people in metropolitan cities
and is an experiment in drawing nature toward man,
as nature being the presupposition of life.
Hafsteinn Júlíusson – Product Design
9.
“Stuðlar are corrugated-paper modules that link to-
gether in a simple and easy manner to form a wall that
is as functional in the home as in the office. Stuðlar
were developed during a workshop run by Hrafnkell
Birgisson, where each student was required to design
a product for a local manufacturing company. I se-
lected Kassagerðin-Central Packaging and developed
a product using the company’s basic production ma-
terials and techniques.”
Friðgerður Guðmundsdóttir – Product Design
10.
“The development of Blackletter typefaces stopped
in the first half of the 20th century, as they fell out of
favour for social and political reasons. In the decades
that have passed, the legacy of the 500-year history
of Blackletter has been mostly forgotten, and Blacklet-
ter typefaces are rarely used, apart from beer bottle
labels and for rock-music graphics. In researching my
BA thesis, I discovered that in Germany, until around
1940, it was quite common to use Blackletter typefaces
for books and other large texts. I wanted to attempt to
make a book-typeface based on the Blackletter form,
in a modern style. To try to envision where the Black-
letter form would have developed had it not lost its
standing.”
Sveinbjörn Pálsson – Graphic Design
By Steinunn Jakobsdóttir
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