The South Iceland Biennale is a live-art venue for sharpening our focus on humanity’s relationship to environments at a precarious time. The goal of the South Iceland Biennale is to support progressive, critical discussion across the fields of art, design, and architecture. The focus will be on rural areas with special emphasis on South Iceland and its inland and highland areas.

Testing Grounds is where ideas for the South Iceland Biennale will be researched and developed. Themes and ideology are explored in experimental workshops. Themes emerging from the Testing Ground will inform the curatorial approach for the biennales. Themes will reflect current issues, be internationally recognized, and impact the local environment.

South Iceland Biennale

The South Iceland Biennale builds relationships. From a home base at the historic farm Stóri-Klofi in the Landsveit district, collaborations will be launched with art museums, galleries, schools, and other cultural institutions in South Iceland. Local knowledge and creative fields will be brought together for the purpose of exploring new ways of meeting the challenges of the future: environmental issues, sustainability, land conservation, innovation, food security, energy use, tourism, globalism, global warming, rapid technological development, social change, racism, and political and economic inequality.

We have founded an art movement aimed at promoting dialogue and interaction on key current topics in the arts, design, and architecture in an international context. We believe that the arts will play a leading role in the transformations that are needed in order to cope with the man-made predicament that confronts world civilization. Through exhibitions, education, conferences, discussions, publications, and events, the South Iceland Biennale will make every effort to deepen the conversation about contemporary battle lines and apply artistic methods towards innovation and the development of knowledge infrastructures.