The Venice Questionnaire #19: Katrín Sigurdardóttir

ArtReview sent a questionnaire to a selection of the artists exhibiting in various national pavilions of the Venice Biennale, the responses to which will be published over the coming days. Katrín Sigurdardóttir is representing Iceland. The pavilion is at Palazzo Zenobio Collegio Armeno Moorat, Raphael Dorsoduro, 2596, Fondamenta del Soccorso

What can you tell us about your plans for Venice?

Well, they are no longer plans, as the work is almost done. I am continuing to work with place and memory, but in this project, similar to the works I made for the Met in 2010, this is not an intimate memory or a personal place, rather a cultural memory. It’s not exactly historical fiction, but still it’s an unorthodox use of history, akin to how I mine the discipline of architecture in this work and many previous works.

Are you approaching the show in a different way to how you would with a ‘normal’ exhibition?

I approach every exhibition differently; there is always a new context, just as there is always a new floor plan. This work is borne out the possibilities that I saw in the location I selected. There is somehow not a way to separate the two.

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Katrín Sigurdardóttir, Foundation, 2013, artisinal tile construction and mixed media installation.Photo: ORCH/orsenigochemollo. Courtesy the artist and the Icelandic Art Center.