Hamraborg Festival
Jóhanna Ásgeirsdóttir
Ásgerður Heimisdóttir
August 2024

Of Various Kinds is a research project by two women on their own creative processes and positions in society as creative women compared to their foremothers. The exhibition is an ode to Gerður Helgadóttir, a pioneer and remarkable woman, whose name Gerðarsafn bears. We use her works as templates or scaffolding. We fill the negative spaces in her delicate metal sculptures with our own imagery and materials. The works incorporate references to Ásgerður Búadóttir, Eyborg Guðmundsdóttir, and Nína Tryggvadóttir. We specifically look at Ásgerður’s work Seven Lives, where she commemorates female artists, including Eyborg and Nína, her colleagues who passed away prematurely. Our material choices reflect these predecessors: Jóhanna works with stained glass as Gerður did extensively, and Ásgerður Heimisdóttir works with textiles and found objects, like her namesake Búadóttir. Among the glass, there are glimpses of polished stones, which come from the rock collection of Gyða Jónsdóttir, Jóhanna’s grandmother. Gyða was also a glass artist who died prematurely, intending to use these stones in her glass works. We thought about our foremothers and motherhood, being relatively new mothers ourselves. Ásgerður Búadóttir had three children. Ásgerður’s descendants are now working to document her works and exhibition history and share this process on social media. It is noted in Gerður’s biography that she chose not to have children, believing that motherhood was incompatible with the life of an artist. We are now trying to navigate this balancing act, which we are told is within reach for the Icelandic superwoman: cultivating the self, career, and family life in perfect harmony. Regardless, we both felt the need to ground ourselves and get to know ourselves anew after having sacrificed body and soul to our beloved children, emerging from maternity leave thirsty to create.