Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic artist, poet, composer and filmmaker born in Reykjavík in 1987. Her multidisciplinary practice moves between performance, sound, moving image, sculpture, installation and writing. Rather than treating these forms as separate, she allows voices, objects, gestures and spaces to shift into one another. Language appears both as communication and as a threshold: when ordinary speech reaches its limits, rhythm, intuition and collective presence take over. Her work often uses myths, charms, games and dreamlike situations to examine uncertainty, spiritual experience and the ways imagination can alter perception. Performances may emerge briefly and disappear, leaving traces that resist a single fixed interpretation.
In 2026 Sigurðardóttir represents Iceland at the 61st Venice Biennale with Pocket Universe, commissioned by the Icelandic Art Center and presented from 9 May to 22 November. Curated by Margrét Áskelsdóttir and Unnar Örn Auðarson, the exhibition occupies interconnected indoor and outdoor spaces in a former shipyard. Moving images, sound, sculptures, orbs, a boat and recurring live actions form an environment that changes over time. A central film follows “Creature Zero” in search of an imagined original rock, linking stories from different cultures with questions of beginnings and world-making. The project extends Sigurðardóttir’s interest in hope, chance and belief as practical tools for navigating instability.