Hafnarborg's Autumn Exhibition 2021 – winning proposal

The Arts Council of Hafnarfjörður has chosen Community of sentient beings, in curation Welcome to Ujazdowska and Huberts Gromny, as the autumn exhibition of 2021. By inviting a diverse group – artists, scholars and others – to participate in the exhibition, the curators aim to create a platform where multiple voices meet and different possibilities of expression and perception are explored. As such, the exhibition will offer a diverse approach, with a focus on time, process and performance, where the space will be activated, explored and utilised in many ways, so that the museum becomes a place for connection.

See the announcement on the Hafnarborg website. 

By viewing our connection with the world as a society of sentient beings we can approach the subject in a new way, whether we are dealing with the relationship between man and nature, man and culture, or man's relationship with himself. The concept sentient being ...therefore frees us from the shackles of value-laden words, so we can imagine what it is to be human in a broader context. The main idea is to ask questions about the narrative and sociological meaning of the human, in relation to what and who we consider to belong to society. The harbour town and the history of the house are also an interesting place for such a study, as the change in the house's use can be said to represent a symbolic transformation, marking a departure from medical practices, i.e. when it was converted from a pharmacy into a museum, represented a symbolic transformation, in which a departure was made from medical practices, i.e. pharmacology, and recourse was instead had to the spiritual and cultural influences of art.

This raises questions about the tension between art and science, where art can be seen as a cognitive tool that helps us to analyse what cannot be explained by science alone – the connection between the known and the unknown. By stretching the senses, the exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to experience a place and time, and to reflect on the importance of memories and different means of communication, technological development and telecommunications, which have brought about significant changes in Icelandic society, which is becoming increasingly diverse. This diversity also brings with it a connection to other places, new traditions and customs. Every newcomer has a certain knowledge, their own collection of memories, in their luggage, which they use to cope with new situations and an unfamiliar country. If we think of art as a tool that enables us to understand the invisible or the intangible, we can even use it to tackle different definitions and aspects of what it means to be sentient being.

Hubert Gromny is an artist, academic, curator and writer based in Reykjavík. He graduated with an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland, in 2015. He also holds a BA from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy. In his work, Hubert explores the boundaries between art, academia and popular culture, with the aim of dismantling the political and sociological values of visual and cultural studies.

Wiola Ujazdowska is an artist, performance artist and art historian based in Reykjavík. She holds an MA in Art History from Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, where she also studied painting at the university's Faculty of Fine Arts. From 2012 to 2013, she studied at CICS in Cologne, Germany. Wiola's work primarily deals with the body and gender in the political sphere, with reference to migration, class divisions, borders and religious doctrines, as well as engaging with cultural and sociological structures within a philosophical, anthropological and cultural context.

The names of the participants and information about the show's programme will be announced later.

This exhibition will be the eleventh in Hafnarborg's autumn exhibition series, a project which aims to give curators with a relatively short career a chance to submit a proposal for an autumn exhibition at Hafnarborg. The Art Council of Hafnarborg, together with the director, reviews the applications and selects the winning proposal each year.