Alda Mohr Eyðunardóttir

Alda Mohr Eyðunardóttir (b. 1997) was born and raised in Torshavn, Faroe Islands, and is a master student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.

Eyðunardóttir is fascinated by arts and crafts, and their use of various materials. The materials used in her work often refers to Faroese culture and craftsmanship: for example, weaving, fishing gear and sheep’s wool. But her works are not woven with the thoroughness and precision that often characterize textiles in traditional Faroese culture nor are the artist’s sculptures portraying the landscape in a traditional way. In other words, the work is alluding to something else: to the back story – a narrative about maintenance of one’s own culture when you’re far away from it. A challenge Faroese people have always faced in terms of being a small country in relation to others.

Words and language play a special role in Eyðunardóttir’s practice. The titles of the works are small poems in themselves. While some titles are poetic and emotional texts, others are short and direct. The titles and the interaction between them shed light on a variety of topics. These include the relationship between materiality and mentality, and how many emotions can be associated with something material like a knitted hat or a ball of wool. Other titles refer to the relationship between psychology and nature, and the Faroese identity created from those two. Common to all of them is that they have ambiguity and are at first written in Faroese. Translations give them other ways of existing but they still maintain the original meaning for those who know.