The Art Council of Hafnarborg has selected the proposal submitted by Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir from those received during the museum’s open call for Hafnarborg’s next autumn exhibition, scheduled for 2024. The title of the exhibition is Unknown Benevolence, bringing together a group of women and non-binary artists who will exhibit new works alongside older works.

Unknown Benevolence is an excursion hoping to find a truth about the current moment and about art as a healing force, celestial power or even a message from beyond. The exhibition aims to create an organised yet organic whole in Hafnarborg that incites you to heal when need be and take charge when the time is right. Conveying a message of healing that sharpens the mind but softens the heart and nurtures a newfound strength to face hard facts, yet be soft and kind when need be to embrace ideas foreign to one’s own reality. All of this resonating inside you, a micro cosmos that itself aligns with the universe itself.

The exhibition hopes to conjure up healing ancient powers that have been in existence for longer than we could imagine, in order to face our shared history and challenging present circumstances. What the artists then have in common is creating works that speak to these healing forces or creating works in order to heal, which the curator herself likes to think of as presenting an unknown benevolence. The exhibition will take a closer look at this unknown benevolence, which is described by Þórhildur Tinna as being the undercurrent of reality or an energy that is ephemeral, but feels constant at the same time. Furthermore, this constitutes an expansive force in the universe, but also a subtle vibrancy that resonates within you. Always charged with the possibility of positive change and healing.

The participating artists will be announced at a later date.

Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir is an art historian, theorist and curator that is employed at the Icelandic Art Center. There she takes part in the organisation of artist-run biennial Sequences and the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Bienniale as project manager of international projects. She is one of the main organisers of LungA Art Festival in East Iceland, which is presented annually by a group of young cultural practitioners who are equally passionate about visual art and culture. Þórhildur Tinna received her BA degree in art history and theory from the University of Iceland and then went on to finish her postgraduate studies in art and cultural management at King’s College, London, where she focused on curatorial studies and art theory.

This will be the fourteenth exhibition in Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition Series, where the objective is to collaborate with different curators, who get the chance to submit their own proposals, allowing new voices be heard. The Director and Art Council of Hafnarborg then review the submissions and select the winning proposal each year.

Please note that the exhibition Landscape for the Chosen Ones, which opened in the museum’s upper gallery this autumn, will be temporarily closed during the installation of a new lighting system in the space, from Wednesday November 8th.

The exhibition will remain closed until early December, but we will post an update on the reopening of the exhibition later this month.

The exhibition VALUE, featuring select works from the Hafnarborg Collection, will however remain open during regular opening hours of the museum during this period.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please note that a workshop that was scheduled to take place on Tuesday October 24th has been cancelled for the Women’s Strike happening that same day.

A new date for the workshop will be announced soon.

Stand with women and non-binary people and let their voices be heard.

For more information on the Women’s Strike, see www.kvennafri.is.

Please note that Hafnarborg will be closed for installation from September 4th until September 14th. We would then like to invite you to the opening of our new exhibitions on Thursday September 14th at 8 p.m. Together we will explore Landscape for the Chosen Ones, Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition 2023, curated by Eva Lín Vilhjálmsdóttir and Odda Júlía Snorradóttir, but this will be the thirteenth installation in Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition Series, having been selected from proposals submitted by curators during an open call last year.

At Sindri Ploder’s exhibition, If I Were a Monster, in Hafnarborg’s lower gallery, guests will then enter into the artist’s own world of striking visuals, but earlier this year Sindri was named the artist of the festival Art Without Borders 2023. The exhibition is curated by Íris Stefanía Skúladóttir, artistic director of Art Without Borders.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this and hope to see you at the opening.

September 1st marks the beginning of a new concert season at Hafnarborg, featuring a host of outstanding musicians, as well as promising young performers. The Afternoon Concert series enters its fourth season with a concert by Kjalar Martinsson Kollmar next Friday at 6 p.m. and in the following week we welcome you to the first Midday Concert of the autumn, but the concert series has been part of the Hafnarborg programme since 2003, under the direction of pianist Antonía Hevesi. Later this autumn, we also invite you to attend a performance of contemporary music in the concert series Phonemes, dedicated to original compositions of the 20th and 21st century.

Concerts Autumn/Winter 2023

September 1st at 6 p.m.
Afternoon Concert
Kjalar Martinsson Kollmar and Band

September 5th at 12 p.m.
Midday Concert
Ívar Helgason

October 3rd at 12 p.m.
Midday Concert
Gissur Páll Gissurarson

October 8th at 8 p.m.
Phonemes: Remembrance
Berglind María Tómasdóttir and Júlía Mogensen

October 13th at 6 p.m. (new date)
Afternoon Concert
Hrafnhildur Magnea Ingólfsdóttir and Band

November 7th at 12 p.m.
Midday Concert
Bryndís Guðjónsdóttir

November 10th at 6 p.m.
Afternoon Concert
Los Bomboneros

December 5th at 12 p.m.
Midday Concert
Diddú

December 8th at 6 p.m.
Afternoon Concert
Kristjana Stefáns and Band

Please note that Hafnarborg will be closed on Monday July 24th due to necessary work on the drainage system of the building. We apologise for the inconvenience and look forward to welcoming you at the museum when this work is finished.

The museum will be open again as usual from Wednesday July 26th.

From its inception, The Hafnarborg Songfest has offered a master class for advanced singers. This year, the class takes place from June 19th until the 22nd, filling the museum with music and song for its duration. The class is held in Hafnarborg’s main gallery, starting in the morning and ending in the afternoon, so guests of the museum will be able to enjoy the singing practice during their visit of the current exhibitions. At the end of the course, the participants will perform at a special concert on Thursday June 22nd at 8 p.m. as part of The Songfest. This time, the instructor is renowned singer Kristinn Sigmundsson, with the support of pianist Matthildur Anna Gísladóttir, who will also accompany the singers at the concert.

For more information about The Hafnarborg Songfest, please visit the offical website at www.songhatid.com.

On this day 40 year ago, June 1st 1083, husband and wife Sverrir Magnússon and Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir gifted the town of Hafnarfjörður with their house at Strandgata 34, including their extensive art collection, establishing Hafnarborg – the Hafnarfjörður Centre of Culture and Fine Art.

For decades, the couple had run the Hafnarfjörður Pharmacy in the building that now houses the museum, which was also their home, but together they had amassed a large art collection and their wish was that both the house and the collection would pass onto the community, in the hopes of fostering the cultural landscape of Hafnarfjörður and providing a space for art exhibitions, concerts and related events.

To commemorate this, we invite guests to take a peak behind the scenes at the museum tomorrow, Friday evening, as we work on the installation of our new exhibitions and offer insights into the process of making an exhibition.

So feel free to join us for birthday cake, coffee and light drinks.

Everyone welcome.

On May 2nd, the last Midday Concert of the season took place in Hafnarborg, but the concert series has now been part of the Hafnarborg programme for twenty years.

We thank Valgerður Guðnadóttir for singing for us and our guests and we also thank pianist Antonía Hevesi for her work and dedication, but Antonía has been the artistic direction of the concert series from its inception.

We would also like to thank everyone who has performed at the concerts this season, as well as those who have made the concert series what it is for the past couple of decades, enriching the culture scene in Hafnarfjörður, by offering a free midday concert for all lovers of music.

We look forward to welcoming you at Hafnarborg in autumn when we begin the new season of Midday Concerts.

The Art Council of Hafnarborg has selected Elitist Landscape, as the autumn exhibition of the year 2023, from proposals that were submitted at the end of last year, but the winning proposal was submitted by curators Eva Lín Vilhjálmsdóttir and Odda Júlía Snorradóttir.

The participating artists will be announced at a later date.

This will be the thirteenth exhibition in Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition Series, where the objective is to collaborate with different curators, who get the chance to submit their own proposals, allowing new voices be heard. The Director and Art Council of Hafnarborg then review the submissions and select the winning proposal each year.