SPARK Art Fair Vienna
Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir

20. - 23. March 2025

Gallery Gudmundsdottir presents Icelandic artist Hulda Rós Gudnadóttir at SPARK Art Fair, featuring her latest research-based project S-I-L-I-C-A. Her installation brings together pigment prints, documentary work, and sculptures that examine the extractive industries that underpin the global energy economy. Guðnadóttir explores how coal mining, monoculture farming, and solar cell production are deeply intertwined with both historical and contemporary realities of colonial capitalism. Focusing on material transformation, she allows the physical materials themselves to take center stage and exposes the hidden costs behind the promise of “clean” energy. By drawing parallels between the Arctic and the Global South, Guðnadóttir reveals how 21st century colonial expansion is no longer only driven by nation-states but by private enterprises and multinational economic forces, particularly in resource extraction and ocean-based industries. A centerpiece of the presentation is the Golden Ship, a sculpture that reflects on the stakes of maritime trade and the enduring myths of the ocean as a site of wealth and conquest. Guðnadóttir invites a reconsideration of the Arctic’s role in global extraction, showing how the region has long been embedded in systems of resource circulation while also gaining increasing geopolitical significance today. Guðnadóttir’s practice demonstrates how artistic processes can reveal the interwoven networks of labor, landscape, and economy that continue to shape our world.