Touching landscape nominated to the Icelandic Design Awards 2022
Touching landscape by Tinna Gunnarsdóttir is nominated to the Icelandic Design Awards 2022. The awards will take place on November 17th in Gróska.
From the jury:
Stepping-stones for Héðinsfjörður is a static artwork and a part of a Ph.D. project where Tinna Gunnarsdóttir researches how aesthetic experiences of landscape can be a positive power for improvement in the climate change reality of the Holocene.
The artwork appears unexpectedly in its deserted environment, like a sudden discovery of how man and nature can influence each other, while it leaves food for thought about respect and interception. The artwork certainly is an interception, obviously man made, but at the same time visibly indigenous and natural. It is a distinguished monument of how we as human beings connect with nature and aesthetics.
About the project:
In Touching Landscape, the focus is on aesthetic engagement in landscape as a response against the acute environmental problems of the Anthropocene. Today’s wicket problems call for our immediately response through a variety of approaches, tools, and techniques, from science to art and humanities, and from the individual to the collective. The research is interdisciplinary in its approach as it draws from many disciplines. Iceland's vast semi-wild landscape is explored though the lens of aesthetic engagement, where methodologies from art and humanities are employed and methods borrowed from various fields. Although emphasis is put on human experience, the project sits within a framework of more-than-human ontology, acknowledging the complex intertwining between humans, nonhumans and inanimate matter. The concept of landscape is explored from a phenomenological point of view and oriental aesthetic attitudes lead to new approach in the Icelandic context. The research explores how aesthetic experiences in landscapes can be stimulated, conceptualized, and understood as an agency of change. A central part of the research is a case study carried out in Héðinsfjörður where site-specific design objects were installed.
About the designer:
Tinna Gunnarsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1968. She gained her design education in England, Germany and Italy and has been running her design studio in Reykjavik since 1993. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally. Currently she is a professor at Iceland University of the Arts - Department of Design and Architecture.
Through everyday objects and design research Tinna reflects on the environment whether it be domestic or the natural. She puts material and technology into unexpected circumstances generating a different perspective, an expanded experience - a twisted context. Her life-long immersions in Icelandic landscapes contribute to her understanding of spatial awareness, formally expressed through material objects.
The jury of the Icelandic Design Awards are Sigríður Sigurjónsdóttir, designer and director of the Museum of Design and Applied arts, chairman, María Kristín Jónsdóttir, designer, vice chairman, Ragna Fróðadóttir, designer, Þorleifur Gunnar Gíslason, designer, Arna Sigríður Mathiesen, architect, Margrét Kristín Sigurðardóttir for the Federation of Icelandic Industries and Daniel Byström, designer and Design Nation.
The Icelandic Design Award honours the best Icelandic design and architecture annually. The importance of design in our society, culture and business has been growing steadily, and it is therefore vital to increase the understanding of good design and highlight the value of quality.
Celebrating achievement and excellence, the Icelandic Design Award is given to a designer, a team, a studio or an architect in recognition of an outstanding new work, object, project or collection. The award is given to a recent project that demonstrates creative thinking, resourceful solutions, thorough presentation and professional methodology throughout the design process. Best investment in design recognises successful investment in design or architecture in the past year. It is awarded over to a company that has incorporated design in the core of its operations to create value and increase competitiveness.
This week we will be announcing the nominations for the year 2022 and the award ceremony will take place on November 17th. Stay tuned.
The Icelandic Design Award is established by Iceland Design and Architecture in collaboration with the Iceland University of the Arts, the Museum of Design and Applied Art, Promote Iceland, and SI - the Federation of Icelandic Industries.
