Days of Darkness Artist Talk – Ioana Popovici, Michala Paludan, Rasmus Røhling

October 31, 2019, 16:30 – 18:00, at Skaftfell, Austurvegur 42, 3rd floor.

In celebration of the Days of Darkness in East Iceland, Skaftfell’s current artists in residence Ioana Popovici (RO), Michala Paludan (DK) and Rasmus Røhling (DK) will give three short talks presenting a selection of their previous and current work. They will offer an insight into what has brought them to Seyðisfjörður and how they are using their creative time here at the residency.

The talk will be held in English and take place in Skaftfell’s artist apartment on the top floor of Austurvegur 42. Coffee, tea and biscuits will be available, and everyone is welcome!

About the artists:

Ioana Popovici is a choreographer, performer, and object-theatre maker from Romania, where she studied at the Academy of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. Since 2000 she has lived and worked abroad. Her works have been presented in festivals and galleries in Europe, USA, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and Brasil, and as a dancer she collaborated with several international choreographers. In 2008 she received the Sazka Award “Discovery in Dance” for the performance “Portrait” in Prague. Ioana is currently exhibiting an extract of her most recent work “Discard, decay, rust” in the Skaftfell Bistro (until Nov 7, 2019).

Michala Paludan is an artist who currently lives and works in Denmark. She is a fellow of the Whitney Independent Study Program and received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Previously she studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. She is on the board of UKK (Unge Kunstnere og Kunstformidlere).

Through installations and photography Michala Paludan explores questions of agency, representation and intimacy. In previous works she has worked with Nordic women’s rights movements in relation to labor and the financial crisis through the lens of satire. Lately her work has revolved around questions of care and reproductive work. In her talk at Skaftfell Michala will speak about her research into questions of the natural and how it relates to reproductive work and representations of Iceland.

Michala Paludan has previously exhibited at Armory Center for The Arts (US), Primer (DK), Years (DK), LIAF (NO), MAK Center for Art and Architecture (US), Lunds Konsthall (SE), Kim? (LV), Moderna Museet (SE), 13th Istanbul Biennial (TR) and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (NO) among others.

Rasmus Røhling (DK) holds a BFA from Jutland Art Academy, Aarhus (2008) and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles (2010).

Røhling sees artistic practice as a kind of phantom limb among other bodies of knowledge, and his video installations and sculptural works often revolve around the ways in which this paradoxical self-concept informs art’s interaction with the surrounding world and vice versa. Røhling’s work has recently dealt with how tropes such as male eccentricity and male virtuosity within the art historical canon relate to current political themes such as male anxiety and male crisis. In his talk at Skaftfell Rasmus will speak about a few recent works connected to his research on anxiety reducing animations in the healthcare sector and about their relation to an understanding of art as a soothing image.

Rasmus has previously exhibited at Art Hub Copenhagen (DK), Primer, (DK), Sismografo (PT), SixtyEight Art Institute, (DK), Artist Space (US), Den Frie Udstillingsbygning (DK), and Museum Fur Gegenwartskunst Basel (CH) among others.

Michala Paludan’s and Rasmus Røhling’s 2-month residency at Skaftfell is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.