The sculpture installation Puffin Shop (2019) has been acquired by The Living Art Museum (Nýló) in Reykjavík, Iceland—one of the country's most influential artist-run institutions, housed in the iconic Marshallhouse, a central hub for contemporary art.
The work was recently featured in a curated selection of new acquisitions from 2020 onward, organized by the museum’s Collection Director, Jenny Barrett. [Link to curatorial text]. The pictures are from that exhibition.
Puffin Shop is a striking and thought-provoking installation comprising three triangular sculptures constructed from 2,470 puffin plush toys and nine IKEA pine wood shelves. At once playful and unsettling, the work interrogates the commodification of national identity and the layered dynamics of cultural representation.
Originally created for the solo exhibition All is Full of Love (2019) at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Puffin Shop explores contemporary manifestations of crypto-colonialism in Iceland. The installation engages with the country’s explosive tourism boom alongside the less visible but economically dominant fishing industry. By triangulating themes of fish, tourism, and art, Guðnadóttir reveals the deeper mechanisms of gentrification and economic transformation in her home country.
Curated by Jonatan Habib-Engqvist, the original Berlin exhibition framed these tensions within broader geopolitical and aesthetic discourses.
Adding another layer to the work, composer Joseph Marzolla collaborated with the Icelandic Choir in Berlin, led by Haraldur Thrastarson, to create an original soundtrack that accompanies the installation. [Link to more information about Puffin Shop]
[Listen to Joseph Marzolla’s soundtrack here]