Mutations
Barbara Í Gongini & Hauge Í Gongini Djernis
Exhibition 21/5—11/9 2023
In this exhibition Hauge Í Gongini Djernis and Barbara Í Gongini examine a shared inheritance. It is an exhibition where art meets design, where two generations enter into a dialogue about their work, boldly exploring where the connections and differences are. Maybe their mutual DNA forms bridges they had not been aware of themselves.
They have a shared interest for the geological, for technology and for playing with and challenging the traditions in the area of crafts and textiles. Things change, mutate in their hands. And they are each in their own way captivated with exploring narratives on nationality, identity and place. The works are created by dissecting the familiar, manipulating the structures and fusing the parts together in new ways.
The exhibition consists of video works, sculptural installations and designs.
Photo: Karina Jønson
Barbara Í Gongini, born 1966 in Fuglafjörður, is the Faeroe Islands’ best known avantgarde designer. Her characteristically raw, black designs poetically combine the asphalt and sharp edges of the big city with the basalt and feathered nests of the bird-inhabited cliffs, and will soon be celebrating their 25th anniversary. She presented her first collection in 2000, shortly before she joined the design boutique Könrøg, and in 2005 she established her label BARBARA I GONGINI. Over the years Barbara Í Gongini has participated in inter-Nordic projects in art and design, most recently the exhibition The Weather Diaries, which was shown both in Frankfurt (2018) and Seattle (2019). In 2017 she was awarded the Faroese Culture Prize.
Hauge Í Gongini Djernis, born 1996 in Copenhagen, is currently attending the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art. Hauge Í Gongini Djernis works both digitally and analoguely. His works place themselves on a threshold between the natural world surrounding us and a synthetic digital reality. Half Faroese he works with his relationship to a landscape and a country that are for him suffused with memories and stories. His digital reconstructions can be seen as expressing the memory of a country.