Text work, 2013.
Tapestry, skateboards.
The exhibition Tapestry was presented in gallery Kling & Bang in Reykjavik. The exhibition was a collaborative project between Jona Hlif and designer Gudjon Tryggvason (Go With Jan). In the exhibition, the walls were filled with colored tapestry, containing seemingly endless boxes and patterns. The patterns were designed by Tryggvason, in order to make a code, replacing the alphabetical letters.
Privacy, secrecy, interaction and essentially the notion of friendship was the central theme of the exhibition. Going through their personal correspondence the collaborators found phrases and parts of texts which were chosen to be coded and then printed on the tapestry and skateboards. Some of the texts were personal and shed light on private thoughts of the collaborators, thoughts they would only present to each other in light of their friendship. Viewers were given ciphers to decipher the code, being in the process able to understand the texts underneath. Although the texts were taken out of their original context, viewers would still be able to grasp the intimacy and privacy from the correspondence.
A catalogue containing a cipher and writings on the works, was published for the exhibition.