ELSEWHERE
2019
Asmundarsalur
Reykjavik, Iceland.

archival inkjet prints
concrete sculptures 

Art and architecture have historically scaled down our body to experience moments of awe through the monumentality of th physical objects—think cathedrals and authoritarian architecture. With the introduction of technologies of the image, like photography to mattes and maquettes for film, scaling happens not only in the physical and known dimension of space but also in the abstract and perceptual dimension of one’s mind: by means of these objects the body is perceptually scaled to occupy these small physical worlds in the endless space of our mind, and it feels real. The key to this self-recreation is simply being able to day-dream: the meditative act of creating oneself through non-linear and non-logical vignettes. Day-dreaming begins with a small and mundane recurrence of a memory, such as walking along a path we’ve walked countless, thoughtless times, that then weaves itself into larger scenarios whereby suddenly we are observing from outside, a grand narrative in a parallel timeline or outside our immediate physical reach. But it is still real as it ties everything back down to the embodied scale, grounding it to our immediate senses. In this vein of traversing the different scales of the body and recreating
                                                                                                           

ourselves to experience reality at the fullest, we can look to the architect Juhani Pallasmaa who pushes this even further by recreating himself in different materialities to experience architecture: “I confront the city with my body; my legs measure the length of the arcade and the width of the square; my gaze unconsciously projects my body onto the facade of the cathedral, where it roams over the mouldings and contours, sensing the size of recesses and projections; my body weight meets the mass of the cathedral door, and my hand grasps the door pull as I enter the dark void behind. I experience myself in the city, and the city exists through my embodied experience. The city and my body supplement and define each other. I dwell in the city and the city dwells in me.”  In Elín Hansdóttir’s work we are tasked with pushing ourselves even further than connecting the body and architecture. Here, we are given the vessels to become galactic bodies.

EYE OF THE SKIN II
archival inkjet print
100 x 150 cm

EYE OF THE SKIN II
archival inkjet print
100 x 150 cm

EYE OF THE SKIN III
archival inkjet print
100 x 150 cm