Elín Hansdóttir (b. Reykjavík, Iceland, 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersections of installation, sculpture, and photography. Her work explores the phenomenology of experiential perception, spatial emptiness, and conceptual openness while foregrounding peripheral, relational, and embodied aspects of the artistic encounter.

Hansdóttir’s immersive, site-specific installations leverage sensory limitation, spatial reconfiguration, distortions of scale, and optical illusions that alter the viewer’s perception of space. By thrusting the viewer into a liminal uncertainty about what they are perceiving and why it feels subtly different, Hansdóttir draws out the viewer’s reflexive awareness of their own presence within the aesthetic encounter.

In foregrounding the palpable, yet ineffable, feeling of being present in—and moving through—a space, Hansdóttir displaces traditional notions of artistic meaning that center on the representational content of artworks alone. Like earlier light and space artists who champion art’s phenomenological capacity to highlight the connection between perceiving and world-building, Hansdóttir cultivates a heightened sense of presence and conceptual agency in the act of perceiving. The viewer isn’t drawn into the art space to observe and uncover specific meaning in discrete artworks. Rather, the artworks invite the viewer to sense their own, embodied presence in the art space and tangibly experience their own participation in the hermeneutic loop between artist, artwork, and viewer through which meaning arises.

Hansdóttir’s commitment to conceptual openness is similarly reflected in her artistic process, which privileges seeing, searching, finding, and organically ‘happening upon’ materials, sites, and media that become integral to her installations. Her ethos aligns with theorist Michael Polanyi’s view that we grasp a “tacit” or ineffable sense of knowing from our embodied presence in the world which underscores how we see it, shaping our experiments and discoveries. Hansdóttir allows congruences to emerge from her symbiotic encounters with a space, connoting a conceptual open-endedness in which the viewer is invited to participate as a crucial catalyst in the cultivation of meaning, through their own haptic awareness.

For Hansdóttir, liminal awareness yields a diffusive power that extends beyond the gallery walls and into the world at large, channeling Pallasmaa’s thought that “peripheral vision integrates us within a space” and “envelops us in the flesh of the world,” while the narrow scrutiny of “focused” attention “pushes us out of the space, making us mere spectators.” The critical upshot of Hansdóttir’s work is the empowering realization that the world (like the art space) is not a static structure that we merely confront as passive outsiders. Instead, we are perceptual participants in a space of possibility that we are integrally connected with and have the power to collaboratively shape.

She has created and installed work in a number of international venues including KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Marta Herford, Hamburger Bahnhof, ZKM Karlsruhe, Frieze Projects, The Marrakech Biennale, National Gallery of Iceland and the Reykjavik Art Museum. In 2016 she was awarded the Optimism Award for Culture, patroned by the President of Iceland, as well as the Gudmunda S.Kristinsdottir Art Prize, founded by artist Erró.

KÜNSTLERHAUS BETHANIEN
EIGENZEIT
19.05.2022 - 12.06.2022

The exhibition marks the end of a year long artist residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. 

HARPA CONCERT HALL
HIMINGLÆVA
Unveiling 07.05.2022

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Mayor of Reykjavík Dagur B.Eggertsson unveiled HIMINGLÆVA, a new public sculpture in front of Harpa Music Hall in Reykjavík, Iceland. 

BURGTHEATER
DER STURM
Premiere 12.03.2022

Director: Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson
Scenography: Elín Hansdóttir
Costumes: Karen Briem
Music: Gabriel Cazes
Dramaturgy: Sebastian Huber

Starring :
Michael Maertens, Dietmar König, Maria Happel, Johannes Zirner, Nils Strunk, Roland Koch, Florian Teichtmeister, Lili Winderlich, Mavie Hörbiger

        

GERÐARSAFN
KOPAVOGUR ART MUSEUM
14.01.2022 - 27.03.2022
Curated by: Brynja Sveinsdóttir

AD INFINITUM
Elín Hansdóttir & Úlfur Hansson

                  

REYKJAVÍK ART MUSEUM
IÐAVÖLLUR: ICELANDIC ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY 10.06.2021 - 17.10.2021
Group show
Curated by: Aldís Snorradóttir, Markús Þór Andrésson & Ólöf Kristín Sigurðardóttir

Artists:
Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir / Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir / Arna Óttarsdóttir /Arnar Ásgeirsson / Bjarki Bragason / Dodda Maggý / Elín Hansdóttir / Eva Ísleifs / Guðmundur Thoroddsen / Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir / Páll Haukur Björnsson / Rebecca Erin Moran / Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson / Örn Alexander Ámundason

BOOK LAUNCH
LONG PLACE
28.05.2021

Edited by Anne Kockelkorn
Designed by Dorothée Billard
Published by DISTANZ

           

NATIONAL THEATRE OF ICELAND
VERTU ÚLFUR
Premiere 22.01. 2021

Starring: Björn Thors
Directed by: Unnur Ösp Stefánsdóttir
Scenography: Elín Hansdóttir
Costumes: Filippía I. Elísdóttir
Music: Valgeir Sigurðsson
Lighting: Björn Bergsteinn Guðmundsson
/ Halldór Örn Óskarsson
Sound design: Elvar Geir Sævarsson
/ Valgeir Sigurðsson

            

HARBINGER PROJECT SPACE
LATENT SHADOW
17.10.2020 - 17.11.2020
Curated by:  Claudia Hausfeld & Daria Sol Andrews

Group exhibition with works by Berglind Hreiðarsdóttir, Anne Rombach, Elín Hansdóttir  and Chelsey Honders. The four artists present a range of photographic  works that explore the manipulation of surfaces and structure, the distortion of context, spaces of transition, the complication of comprehension and the literary meaning of images.

MARTA HERFORD
Glass and Concrete -
Manifestations of the Impossible 29.02.2020 - 04.10.2020
Group show
Curated by:  Friederike Fast & Anne Schloen

Artists: 
Francis Alÿs / Peter Bialobrzeski / Oliver Boberg / Matti Braun / Andreas Bunte / Daniel Buren / Louisa Clement / Louis De Cordier / Alia Farid / Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani / Thomas Florschuetz / Daniela Friebel / Vincent Ganivet / Jakub Geltner / Isa Genzken / Elín Hansdóttir /  Mona Hatoum / Philipp Hennevogl / Stephan Huber / Thomas Huber / Aernoudt Jacobs /  Jeffrey James / Isa Melsheimer / Jan Muche / Martin Mühlhoff & Christian Vossiek / Olaf Pernice / Túlio Pinto / Robin Rhode / Kilian Rüthemann / Kai Schiemenz / Wolfgang Schlegel /Adrien Tirtiaux / Tatiana Trouvé /Lena von Goedeke / Martin Walde (in cooperation with Bernd Weinmayer)

ÁSMUNDARSALUR
ELSEWHERE
07.09.2019 - 06.10.2019
Solo show

OPEN PROJECT SPACE
JEWELRY WAGON
29.03.2019 - 20.04.2019
Group show

Artists: 
Brynhildur Pálsdóttir, Carl Boutard, Elín Hansdóttir, Kristján Guðmundsson, Rebecca Erin Moran, Valgerður Sigurðardóttir, Þór Sigurþórsson.

HARPA 
A FLAG FOR A NEW NATION
opening 01.12.2018
Group show
Curated by Hörður Lárusson

Artists:
Kristín Þorkelsdóttir, Elín Hansdóttir, Jakob Sturla Einarsson, Arnar Ómarsson. 

GRÓTTA ICELAND
EARTH HOMING - REINVENTING TURF HOUSES
08.08.2018 - 01.09.2018
Group show
Curated by: Annabelle von Girsewald

Artists: 
Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir, Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Birgir Andrésson, Borghildur Indriðadóttir, Claudia Hausfeld, Daniel Leeb, Elín Hansdóttir, Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir, Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir, Hrönn Gunnarsdóttir, Kolbeinn Hugi Höskuldsson, Ólafur Sveinn Gíslason, Ólöf Nordal, Ragna Róbertsdóttir, Sean Patrick O´Brian, Sólveig Aðalsteinsdóttir, Steingrímur Eyfjörð, Unnar Örn

REYKJAVIK ART MUSEUM
DIVIDED BY TWO
28.10.2017
Artistic director: Berglind María Tómasdóttir

Collaboration between RÚV (The National Broadcasting Corporation Iceland) and the Reykjavík Art Museum. Composers and artists were invited to collaborate to create an audio-visual performance. 

Concert #4:
Hildur Guðnadóttir, Elín Hansdóttir & Margrét Bjarnadóttir. 

Stream here

SEQUENCES REAL TIME ART FESTIVAL
ELASTIC HOURS
06.10.2017 - 15.10.2017
Curated by Margot Norton

Artists: 
Agnieszka Polska, Anna K.E, Cally Spooner, Elín Hansdóttir, Margrét Bjarnadóttir, Helena Aðalsteinsdóttir, Rebecca Erin Moran, Una Sigtryggsdóttir, Aki Sasamoto, Ásgerður Birna Björnsdóttir, David Horvitz, Florence Lam, Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, Roman Ondak, Alicja Kwade, Birgir Andrésson, Edouardo Navarro, Habbý Ósk, Nancy Lupo, Sara Magenheimer

AWARD 
OPTIMISM AWARD FOR CULTURE
Iceland
2017

Elín Hansdóttir receives the Icelandic Optimism Award, which has been awarded annually since 1981 to recognize and encourage Icelandic artists.
It is patroned by President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and former President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

i8 GALLERY
SIMULACRA
15.12.2016 - 04.02.2017
Solo show

THE LIVING ART MUSEUM
THE PRIMAL SHELTER IS THE SITE FOR PRIMAL FEARS
25.11.2016 - 21.12.2016
Group show
Curated by Patrik Aarnivaara & Maija Rudovska 

Artists:
Darren Banks, O.B. De Alessi, Shirin Sabahi, Alexandra Zuckerman, Johan Österholm, Christian Andersson, Elin Hansdottir, Yuki Higashino, Barbara Sirieix

LICHTPARCOURS BRAUNSCHWEIG
11.06.2016 - 22.09.2016

Artists:
Andreas Fischer, Thilo Frank, Tomás Saraceno, Kevin Schmidt, Alfredo Jaar, Kai Schiemenz, Michael Sailstorfer, Tobias Rehberger, Danica Dakic, Björn Dahlem, Elín Hansdóttir, Studio Drift

REYKJAVÍK ART MUSEUM
ÁSMUNDARSAFN
DISRUPTION
16.04.2016 - 16.10.2016
Solo show
Curated by: Dorothée Kirch

The Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum is dedicated to the works of Ásmundur Sveinsson (1893 - 1982) who was one of the pioneers of Icelandic sculpture. With the exhibition the works of Handóttir and Sveinsson are juxtaposed.