Join us for an afternoon of hand-stitching workshops led by three celebrated Nordic artists: Nora Martine Hjelle Strand, Andrea Magdalena Jónsdóttir, and Thorunn Elisabet Sveinsdóttir. Each artist comes from a textile background, with specialization in embroidery, and all will be participating in The Cold Stitch as part of this year’s NORDIC TEXTILE TAKEOVER.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nora Martine Hjelle Strand is a Norwegian artist based in Bergen, Norway. Her practice centers on processing memories and emotions through physical action. This is the starting point for her autobiographical textile works, which are built through repetitive, time-consuming techniques such as weaving and hand-quilting. Strand is interested in how we are connected as human beings, and how experience shapes the way we live – a theme she explores both directly, through text, and indirectly, through color and imagery. Every work begins with the personal. The finished piece becomes a physical trace of the internal process behind it: every thread holds a thought, every stitch a memory.
Andrea Magdalena Jónsdóttir is a visual artist based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her medium is textile and in particular hand embroidery. Her work explores situations where something is not at its right place, or something is missing but at the same time it appears familiar in the context of the setting. In recent work, Andrea works with her own memory notes, found text and mending. For her, working with thread offers tactile connection with the subject, in a slow but mindful process. Andrea has a BA degree in Anthropology, she studied visual art and design at the Iceland University of the Arts and holds an MA degree in Art Education from the same university. She has worked as an education and mediation specialist at the Reykjavík Art Museum and currently she teaches visual art at Fjölbrautaskólinn in Breiðholt, collage in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Thorunn Elisabet (Totalisa) is an artist and costume/set designer based in Reykjavik, Iceland, whose career spans more than four decades across theatre, film, and fine art.
As a visual artist, Thorunn Elisabet is known for her storytelling through textiles, transforming repurposed fabrics, garments, and old cloth into large-scale quilts and sculptural works that give discarded materials new meaning and value. Her practice reflects a lifelong instinct for giving material history a second life.
She has presented numerous solo and group exhibitions and is a member of both The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists and The Icelandic Actors and Drama Guild. She recently received the distinguished GRIMAN Honorary Award for both costume/set design and her curatorial work through her successful career.
Her life and work have also been the subject of two published books: I Love Being Alive – A Testimony of a Unique Icelandic Artist and She Is My Sweetheart For 50 Years.
