SÍM

Gallerie Käytävä
Helsinki

20 April – 10 June 2026

Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir’s installation meditates on the fluid and unstable materialities of Arctic waters, where
ice, ocean, and atmosphere exist in states of continuous transformation. Through shifting visual fragments
and slow temporal displacements, the work evokes the porous boundaries between presence and
disappearance, solidity and dissolution, memory and change. It opens a contemplative space in which time
elongates and the Arctic emerges not as a fixed landscape, but as a field of ongoing becoming. Rather than
representing environmental change as a singular event, the work attends to its durational, almost
imperceptible unfolding, where transformation is both material and affective.

At once intimate and expansive, the work reflects on the fragile entanglements between human perception
and oceanic ecologies, drawing attention to the instability of Arctic landscapes and the visible and invisible
forces that shape them. Through layered moving images and nuanced shifts in temporality, Hekla Dögg
creates a meditative encounter with the Arctic Ocean as process, trace, and premonition — a space where
environmental change is sensed not as spectacle, but as atmosphere, memory, and warning.
Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir (b. 1969) is an Icelandic visual artist whose work spans video, installation, and drawing. She studied at the Icelandic School of Fine Arts and Crafts (1991–1994), followed by an exchange at the University of the Arts in Kiel and further studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt am Main. She later attended the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where she completed a BFA in 1996 and an MFA in 1999.

Her practice is rooted in close observation of everyday and environmental phenomena, often engaging with
subtle temporal shifts, repetition, and perception. Hekla Dögg’s work frequently navigates the space between the familiar and the unnoticed, drawing attention to gradual transformations that shape how we experience place. Since graduating, she has exhibited extensively in Iceland and internationally, including at the Icelandic National Gallery, Reykjavík Art Museum, Tate Modern in London, and Truck Contemporary Art Center in Calgary. From 2012 to 2022, she served as Professor at the Iceland University of the Arts. She is also a founding member of the artist-run space Kling & Bang.