In an Icelandic second-hand bookshop, Dana Engfer finds a copy of the book Hnattferðir – an essay on space travel between planets, written by Ary Sternfeld in the late 1950s. By borrowing the title for her exhibition and simultaneously embellishing the book with her own analogue and Polaroid photographs, the artist expands the work, writing her personal experience over it and intertwining dimensions of time and space.

Engfer's globetrotting is a meticulous unveiling of laws and a collection of relics, a method of collecting that avoids quick answers and opens up space for thought and questions about what we see and how we see. The exhibition approaches historical material and personal memories with tentative movements, breaking everything down, reassembling the fragments and allowing them to speak to one another. In this way, Engfer creates a narrative that makes the subjective process of recording tangible. The result is a form where past and present are laid together in a lyrical coexistence.

The lyrical element and the subtle intertwining of different realities are profoundly shaped by her connection to Iceland. The works on display reflect the artist's explorations and research during her two-month residency at SÍM Residency Reykjavík in 2024. These include historical photographs by Icelandic photographers from the 19th and 20th centuries, which she found in the archives of the Reykjavík Photograph Collection. On them, Engfer places discarded snail shells and allows their growth rings to become spirals of memory, thereby connecting them to the subjects of the images they are attached to. This combination creates a different kind of testimony, a network that can no longer be unravelled into its individual threads but, sustained by the physical fragility of us all, nevertheless appears questioning, ephemeral and delicate.

With this, and with the exhibition itself, Dana Engfer offers a collection in all the colours of the rainbow where past and present, sources and memories meet and glitter on ever-changing surfaces.

Dana Engfer (b. 1981) is a multidisciplinary artist from Berlin. She studied fine art at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, the Iceland Academy of the Arts and the École des Beaux-Arts Paris with Christian Boltanski, before graduating with a master's degree from the Universität der Künste in Berlin in 2007. In each work, she uses a variety of media such as drawing, collages, photography, video and books. Engfer sees herself as a collector of various traces of time, memories and transitional states, and interprets the atmosphere and stories of specific environments by blending memories, fiction and documentation. (Text: Katharina Kiening)

A special exhibition opening will be held on Thursday, 28th August from 18:00-20:00, and everyone is most welcome!

Other opening times:

Friday 29 August – 14:00 – 18:00
Sat. 30 August – 12:00 – 17:00

LG // Litla Gallerý is supported by the Culture and Tourism Committee.
Hafnarfjörður's due to the event

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In an Icelandic antiquarian bookshop, Dana Engfer discovers a copy of Hnattferðir – a treatise on interplanetary space travel written by Ary Sternfeld in the late 1950s. By borrowing the title for her exhibition and at the same time enriching the book with her own analogue photographs and Polaroids, the artist expands and overwrites the historical object with personal experiences, layering and interweaving dimensions of time and space.

Engfer's Hnattferðir is a careful uncovering of layers and an archiving of traces – a process of collecting that resists quick answers and opens up a space for reflection, for questions about what we see and how we see. It approaches historical materials and individual moments of memory in tentative movements, breaking them apart into fragments, reassembling them, and setting them in dialogue with one another. In doing so, Engfer creates a narrative that makes the subjectivity of documentation processes palpable. The result is a form in which past and present are poetically superimposed and coexist.

This poetic quality and the careful interweaving of different realities are profoundly shaped by her connection to Iceland. The works on display reflect the artist's explorations and research during her two-month stay at the SÍM Residency in Reykjavík in 2024. Among them are historical photographs taken by Icelandic photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries, discovered in the archive of the Reykjavik Museum of Photography. Onto these images, Engfer places abandoned snail shells, allowing their growth layers to become spirals of memory, enabling them to enter into a relationship with the captured subjects. This composition creates a different kind of testimony, a fabric that can no longer be reduced to its individual parts and yet, carried by the transience inherent to us all, appears questioning, fleeting and fragile.

With this, and with the exhibition itself, Dana Engfer presents an iridescent archive in which past and present, documentation and memory permeate one another and shimmer in ever-changing facets.

Dana Engfer (b.1981) is a Berlin-based multimedia artist. She studied fine arts at UdK Berlin University of the Arts, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Christian Boltanski and in Iceland.
University of the Arts in Reykjavik, graduating as a Master Student at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2007. In each work she incorporates a wide variety of media such as drawing, collage, photography, video and books. Engfer sees herself as a collector of different traces of time, memories and limbo, representing the atmosphere and story of specific environments by combining memory and fiction with documentary. (Text: Katharina Kiening)

There will be a special exhibition opening on Thursday, 28th August from 18:00-20:00 and everyone is welcome!

Other opening hours

Fri 29th Aug – 14:00 – 18:00
Sat 30th Aug – 12:00 – 17:00

LG // Litla Gallerý is sponsored by the Culture and Tourism Committee of Hafnarfjörður for this event.