The Icelandic Pavilion moves to a historic new venue
Unnar Örn. Photo: Sunday & White Studio.
VENICE.—
The Icelandic Pavilion will be presented in a new venue at Docks Cantieri Cucchini in San Pietro di Castello, located between the two main International Art Exhibition venues, the Giardini and the Arsenale.
A former shipyard once used for the construction of Venetian boats, the Docks comprise a series of interconnected indoor and outdoor spaces, with buildings dating from the late 1800s and 1950s. This distinctive setting will be incorporated into Ásta’s project, becoming part of the artistic experience, where encounters with the audience are as important as the forms themselves, each moment unfolding in ways that cannot be fully anticipated.
Ásta will present a new multidisciplinary exhibition that weaves different mediums together with poetry, creating portals that guide visitors through overlapping timelines, perspectives, and storylines. The Icelandic Pavilion will unfold as an environment where nothing exists in isolation: every object, gesture, and sound forms part of a larger constellation of signs. For the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Ásta will reflect on the power of imagination and how faith and hope can be found in tangible charged objects such as charms and amulets.
She considers where faith is placed, and on the friction between imagination and reality — moments where the two overlap, blur, and create new possibilities for belief. As they enter the Pavilion, visitors will be enveloped by an atmosphere that is both intimate and expansive, where reflection and quiet transformation take precedence over spectacle. Performative elements will run throughout the space, whether through the artist’s live presence, sculptural forms, or encounters with visitors.
Celebrated as one of Iceland’s most innovative contemporary artists, Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir is a poet, composer, filmmaker, and visual artist renowned for her interdisciplinary practice. Her work merges text, sound, and visual media into ephemeral performances and live actions that move between the experimental, mystical, and conceptual. She resists definitive interpretation, instead focusing on atmosphere and intuition. Her treatment of language as a living material, almost a spiritual act, produces dreamlike vocal structures that open hidden, sometimes chaotic layers of meaning and invite audiences into encounters that are fluid, improvised, and collaborative.
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Artist, says, “Imagination is an undervalued source, a skill of endless possibilities, and it's interesting to see in which ways we can use that to bring forth a change we want in the world.”
Margrét Áskelsdóttir, Curator, says, “I have worked with Ásta for many years, and just as emotions resist language, Ásta’s works seem to slip beyond words; they are sensed rather than explained. Encountering her art is like stepping into another dimension, one that awakens our own sense of being, of human existence itself. Words can become tangled when trying to describe her work, as if language itself falters before its quiet force. Human connection is a vital element in her practice, the energy we experience together, the invisible current that moves between bodies, sound, and space. The Icelandic Pavilion will invite visitors to step into an atmosphere that unfolds gradually, a world where meaning is constantly in motion, like a tone that lingers long after it has faded.”
The Icelandic Pavilion is curated by Margrét Áskelsdóttir and Unnar Örn. Margrét has contributed to Iceland’s contemporary art landscape through her work across museums, galleries, and independent projects, including as Director of BERG Contemporary in Reykjavík from 2015 to 2019. She now serves as President of the Association of Art Historians and Theorists in Iceland. Unnar is an artist and researcher whose practice spans exhibition-making, writing, and education, and who has long been engaged with artist-run initiatives and experimental platforms in Iceland and abroad.
Iceland has exhibited at the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia since the 1960s and has presented its own national pavilion since 1984. Previous presentations have recently included Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir’s playful That’s a Very Large Number – A Commerzbau (2024), Sigurður Guðjónsson’s atmospheric audio-visual sculpture Perceptual Motion (2022), and Shoplifter’s neon, hypernatural hair installation Chromo sapiens (2019).
The Icelandic Pavilion is commissioned by the Icelandic Art Center, which promotes and supports Icelandic contemporary art internationally through grants, collaborations, and projects. The National Gallery of Iceland is an official partner of the Icelandic Pavilion.
