Weronika Balcerak & Lukas Bury
Heiðvirðir einstaklingar

The exhibition centers on the long-standing and little-discussed interactions between Poland and Iceland throughout history – beginning with trade long before Poles became the largest immigrant group in Iceland. Artists Weronika Balcerak and Lukas Bury work with media such as embroidery, video, and painting, and by combining historical sources with reflections on life in the present, they place these complex cultural connections in a new context. The exhibition highlights how everyday objects, labor, and economic ties have influenced Iceland and Poland for nearly a century – and paints a picture of a relationship that began long before modern migration and continues to shape both countries today.
The curators are Aldís Arnardóttir and Hólmar Hólm.

Lukas Bury (b. 1991) and Weronika Balcerak (b. 1996) form the artist duo Austur-Íslendingar. The name references West-Icelanders, who once moved across the ocean to begin new lives, and thus raises questions about arriving in a new country, settling, and belonging. In their artistic practice, they work through visual field research, presenting it through installations, textile works, video, and painting. Their work is based on long processes in which development and context are intertwined, where personal experience meets historical references. Their pieces are characterized by thoughtful material choices and a strong connection to place, focusing on how meaning arises through presence, repetition, and shared space.

Ragna Fróða
Bergmál

In this exhibition, Ragna Fróða invites us into a captivating world of patterns, colors, shapes, and textures. Her world is at once familiar and strange, nostalgic and innovative. The starting point of the works in the exhibition is ink drawings created in a flow state, in direct dialogue between subconscious and hand. Through a multilayered working process, the freehand line of the original drawing transforms into digitally embroidered works existing on the threshold between abstraction and figuration. Ragna’s work revolves around the creative process itself – the interplay of colors, textures, and the stories embedded in the patterns and symbols of textiles. By blending traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, she seeks to expand the boundaries of craft, textile design, and visual art.
The curator is Ingunn Fjóla Ingþórsdóttir.

Ragna Fróða (b. 1970) is a visual artist, curator, and teacher. She studied fashion and textile design in Paris between 1992 and 1995, and then attended the textile department of the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts from 1996 to 1998. She has worked extensively abroad, and over the past fifteen years has lived in New York, Berlin, and Reykjavík, engaging in numerous projects related to art, design, and culture. Ragna was for many years the head of the textile department at the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts and served as chair of the Icelandic Textile Association. In recent years she has lived in New York, where she runs her own studio alongside working as the director of Edelkoort Inc. and New York Textile Month. She has received various grants for her artistic work and contributions to art and culture. Her works have been exhibited in Iceland, Europe, and the United States.

Free admission – see you at Hafnarborg.