Hildigunnur is known for her nuanced practice, which critically examines the global systems of production and distribution and the bizarre lives of the products they create. Her work calls attention to the objects that exist at the periphery of our vision, often the throwaway accessories of material culture: packing materials, price tags, signage, and systems of display. She looks for the beauty inherent in these objects, which have been shaped through countless aesthetic decisions, material limitations, production conditions, moral codes, deals, desires, and mistakes. Hildigunnur uses these human systems and interactions to create her artworks, harnessing the cultures and capabilities of manufacturers, fabricators, and commercial firms as part of her artistic process. She playfully subverts expectations of beauty, value, and utility, making clear commercial systems that are hiding in plain sight. The artist’s work reflects the tension between the personal pleasure to be found in our world of material objects, but also the consequences of a world full of these objects.

Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir (b. 1980, Reykjavík) lives and works in Reykjavík. In 2024, Birgisdóttir represented the Icelandic Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale in Italy. Recent exhibitions include shows at Iceland’s Reykjavik Art Museum, the GES-2 House of Culture, the V-A-C Foundation, Moscow and H2H, Athens. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Iceland, the Reykjavík Art Museum, and The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, among others. Birgisdóttir graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2003.