Past Residents Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir
Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir (b. 1976) graduated from the School of Visual Arts, New York in 2000 with a BFA with honors in Fine Arts; she received her MA in New Genres from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004. Transformation, disguise and play are essential elements of her work, as are references to ceremony and rituals. In her performances Ásdís has employed a theme of destruction, crushing glitter balls under high heels and smashing dishes while reciting texts and dressing up in various costumes. Ornate and spectacular motifs—such as fireworks, Christmas decorations and other frills—are distinctive features in Ásdís’s work.
During her stay in Helsinki, Gunnarsdóttir will be working on the text for the show ‘By Water’ in Eknas, of Pro Artibus Foundation curated by Juha Heikki Tihinen (opening 5 June 2016) as welll as the performance to the text. In addition, Gunnarsdóttir will be working on a new video piece that is related to the text of the show. The text is about a woman who can find her way through fog. The text and the work is inspired by hypnosis by Gurwann Van Tran Gie for his latest film called ‘Experience Séptentrioanle’ that Gunnarsdóttir has starred in.