HULDA RÓS GUÐNADÓTTIR

Photography installation (2025)
Solo exhibition at Gallerí Grótta, Reykjavik (Seltjarnarnes municipality gallery), curated by Becky Forsythe.

The installation consisted of two series of photographs: WERK (202), a series of five archival pigment prints on fine art paper mounted on aluminum Dibond in various dimensions, that was conceived as part of the Keep Frozen research project and SILICA 01-05 (2022), a series of five archival pigment prints on fine art paper mounted on aluminum Dibond, each 80 x 120 cm, that was conceived as part of the SILICA research project.

The exhibition was named among the exhibitions of the year 2025 in the annual reflections of the art critics of Morgunblaðið, Iceland’s national daily newspaper, in its cultural feuilleton section. See translation of the art review by Maria Margrét Jóhannsdóttir here.

The exhibition is understated and free of affectation. Though modest in appearance, there is a distinct beauty in its simplicity. A deeper look reveals many conceptual threads leading in new directions, and it becomes clear that vast ideas and tireless work lie behind it. Hulda Rós’s approach to the fishing industry is unexpected, engaging, and laden with meaning. Her artistic research belongs among the most thought-provoking in Icelandic contemporary art — not least because it is so refreshing to see a woman artist turning her gaze toward a traditionally “masculine” industry in this way. Hulda Rós is a force to be reckoned with.

—- Maria Margrét Jóhannsdóttir, Morgunblaðið

The original curatorial text by Becky Forsythe was written in Icelandic and is translated to English below:

In 2025, Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir marks twenty years of working as a visual artist. Her career began at The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, in 2005, and to mark the occasion she opens a solo exhibition at Gallerí Grótta, located at the library in Eiðistorg shopping centre, the exhibition space of the Seltjarnarnes Municipality in Reykjavik. The choice of location is not accidental: the library and its surroundings are deeply intertwined with the artist’s childhood in the suburban town of Seltjarnarnes, where she grew up by the sea and immersed herself in books. The exhibition thus opens in a place where personal roots and artistic research meet.

At its core, the exhibition focuses on photography as both an independent artistic medium and a research tool. Two photographic approaches in Hulda’s practice meet here. First, WERK (2021), , a series of five prints in various dimensions, mounted on aluminium Dibond and framed in light blue, depicts boxes marked with the words “KEEP FROZEN AT -20°C OR BELOW; FRESH FROZEN AT SEA.” The photographs derive from an installation at Reykjavík Art Museum in 2021, where photography emerged at the final stage of an extensive research and performance project. Second, SILICA 01–05 (2022), also a series of five prints mounted on aluminium Dibond, consists of works measuring 80 × 120 cm, framed in dark natural wood. These photographs were taken as snapshots during field research while the artist was investigating the global production network of silicon—the fundamental material of contemporary high technology.

By placing these approaches side by side, contrasting forms of knowledge production and documentation emerge: on the one hand, the carefully constructed photograph; on the other, the raw and immediate proximity of the moment.

In WERK, photography becomes both medium and method in its own right, transforming installation and performance into autonomous works of art. Each image is carefully constructed: space, light and viewpoint are controlled in order to create a new visual outcome that stands independently from the original installation. Here, photography becomes a frame of representation, reinterpreting the work across time and space.

By contrast, SILICA 01 - 05 captures the immediacy of the field site through a spontaneous approach, in keeping with the artist’s research into the global silicon supply chain. The images are less concerned with formal composition than with observation—capturing fleeting details and unexpected circumstances that shape the research process.

Together, WERK and SILICA 01 - 05 demonstrate the dual role of photography in contemporary art: it can construct, shape and recreate the work, while at the same time documenting, preserving and tracing processes of labour and material. Photography thus becomes a bridge between creation and research, and between the fully formed artwork and that which bears witness to the origin of an idea, underscoring the inseparable role of traces, labour and creative experimentation in artistic production.

The photographs function not simply as images of materials or events, but as transformations of situations, time and process into visual form. They reflect Hulda’s working method at the intersection of performance, installation and documentation, where she continually “projects” her works from one medium into another. Photography thus becomes a medium that connects experience, documentation and interpretation.

The exhibition at Gallerí Grótta also provides an opportunity to situate the artist’s work within the broader context of photography in Icelandic contemporary art and to consider how her research-driven approach has shaped her distinctive position internationally. This solo exhibition casts new light on Hulda’s career and reinforces her position as an artist who works in and through research—visually, socially and materially.

Afterword: The curator’s relationship with this work began quietly during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she folded and stacked boxes behind the scenes while preparations were underway for the artist’s exhibition at Reykjavík Art Museum. From that almost hidden perspective in the “studio,” she now encounters the works again and sees them in a new light—through the curator’s lens, but shaped by that earlier experience.