( Reserved )

~ Site-specific Sculpture made by Kristian Emdal & Signe Emdal

~ Created between November 2024- May 2025 in Iceland and Copenhagen

~ On show at The Factory in Djúpavík, West Iceland May 24th - September 12th, 2025

~ Curator : Emilie Dalum

~ Materials: Icelandic wool, Duradon sailcloth, Anodized aluminum, Pitch, Oakum, Icelandic Seaweed

~ Dimensions: 490 x 65 x 40 cm

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Sky Rope

All the fur lost. Emerging from the sea rising. Caught in the palm of a sail. One million antennas. Relinking a disrupted connectivity. A ladder suspended. Doubt upended. Peripheral management with rectangular pupils. Metallic grip.

Faldereb — roughly translated “falling rope” — is a nautical term in Danish, describing the rope that serves as a handrail on the embarkation ladder that connects dock and ship — a vital guardrail when humans transit between worlds. However, the term is most commonly used to describe something that happens last-minute. “På falderebet” — “on the falling rope” — means to make it in time, in time before the ship departs. 

A twinkle in the eye of a sheep. Tongue in cheek. Sunlit dewdrops on wool. A choir of sweetness. An ambient anchor for all to be reminded of origin and displacement. Attack and regret. Arrival of faith. Or lack thereof. Seeking without hesitation, the phantom of exploration. 

A rope reaching earth and sky has no end, no beginning. Falling yet holding on. Vertical unification of cause and effect. 

~ text by Kristian Emdal

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About Kristian Emdal & Signe Emdal

Brother and sister visual artists Kristian and Signe both have strong roots in functional and artistic practices. Signe has 20 years of experience in building structures, patterns, and textiles and Kristian has 20 years of experience in producing music, performance, sailing, and restoring historic wooden ships.

Together, they produced a new site-specific sculpture for The Factory 2025, merging their craft principles and materials from each of their practices in a shared improvisational exploration. 

Bio´s

Kristian Emdal b.1987

Multi disciplinary artist and crafts person, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Music being his point of departure, Kristian has explored the nature of reality through various practices, performing in Europe, USA and Asia as a musician and performance artist. 

The ocean has always provided a backdrop for his narratives, leading him to pursue training in traditional maritime crafts. Experience that feeds back into his artistic practice, saturating his approach to material, drawing experience from the unrelenting encounter between human skin and primordial substances like tar and salt water.

Kristian explores mythological patterns that stretch vertically, dissecting the temporality of the human experience, aiming to exercise a language that can relink us to our collective origin and each other. 

Signe Emdal b. 1979

Visual artist and Master Artisan Signe Emdal, approaches the sculptural medium as an intuitive act of embodying sensory memories, as well as social models, dialogues, delicate light, structures, landscapes, art & cultural history, community building, ancient carpet and rug traditions, feminism and cosmos.

Her sculptures and tapestries are fragments of ancient structures, combined in a futuristic fluid process to create medium series. This sub-practice of building physical foundations for the work, is inspired by the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and rooted in the artist's technical 20 years of experience in tracking, archiving and building structural expressions for a future world.

Her site-specific artworks are built inside of the loom window without a planned grid or a sketch, but instead, immersed in her subjects and the collective.

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About The Factory in Djúpavík, Iceland 2025:

Sky Dancers explores the natural phenomenon of the aurora borealis with artworks as ethereal and ephemeral as the northern lights themselves. Utilizing both science and myth, the 10 artists lead the way through the old herring factory in Djúpavík, awakening the phenomenon rarely visible to our eyes during summertime – gesturing to the untouchable, connecting Earth and Sky.

Artists:

Anna Ólöf Jansdóttir (IS)

Björt Sigfinnsdóttir (IS)

Edda Karólína (IS)

Kathie Halfin (UKR/IL/US)

Kathryn Cellerini Moore (US)

Lyse Fournier (FR)

Signe Emdal and Kristian Emdal (DK)

Sævar Helgi Bragason (IS)

Tinna Ottessen (IS)

Partners and supporters:

Hótel Djúpavík

The Westfjords Development Fund

The Iceland University of the Arts

Náttúrubarnahátíð á Ströndum

The School of Photography in Reykjavík