Currently, Birgit – one of the founders of Arctic Canvas – is presenting her photographic exhibition Preserved Moments at the National Park Centre in Hellissandur, Snæfellsnes. Below is a short introduction to the exhibition:

On view from April to June 2025.

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Preserved Moments                                                      

 

In Preserved Moments, Birgit Guðjónsdóttir explores the delicate intersection of memory, landscape, and impermanence. Shifting from the moving image to still photography, Birgit reflects on the way we preserve personal and collective memories, and how places—especially the fragile Snæfellsjökull glacier—become vessels for these emotions. Through her lens, she invites us to confront both the beauty and the inevitable loss embedded in our memories, transforming photography into an act of preservation in a world that is ever-changing.​  

 

Birgit Guðjónsdóttir is an Icelandic cinematographer based between Snæfellsnes and Berlin. She was born in Iceland in 1962 to an Icelandic father and an Austrian mother and grew up between Iceland, Austria, and later Berlin, where she spent a large part of her professional life. Originally trained in photography, she has spent most of her career working in film, from documentaries and TV productions to feature films. Her work has been recognized internationally, with her films nominated at Berlinale. Her most recent film, Ljósvíkingar, won Best Film at the 2025 Edda Icelandic Film Awards, and she received an honorary prize at the German Cinematography Awards.

Beyond filmmaking, Birgit has significantly contributed to educating and advocating for cinematographers. She has lectured at top German film schools, including the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, and the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, where she was awarded an honorary professorship in 2013. A founding member of Cinematographinnen, a collective of female cinematographers, Birgit also served as a board member of IMAGO, the European Federation of Cinematographers, from 2012 to 2016. Her work promotes diversity and supports emerging talent in the cinematography field.

Birgit has always been captivated by nature’s beauty and power—something she now shares through Arctic Canvas, the artist residency and creative retreat she recently founded with her daughter in Hellnar, Snæfellsnes. Arctic Canvas is designed as a space for artists, mindfulness practitioners, and nature scientists to focus on their projects, find inspiration, or reconnect with nature to enhance their creativity and well-being. The mission is to foster deeper connections—between creatives, the landscape, and the local community—encouraging longer stays that go beyond rushed tourism. By creating an inviting, multicultural space, Arctic Canvas hopes to inspire meaningful exchanges between visitors and locals alike.

For this exhibition, Birgit presents a collection of images exploring the theme of memory: how do we create and preserve our memories and the emotions they evoke? And how does place, and our experiences tied to it, come into play?

 

A key element of this exploration is her connection to the Snæfellsjökull glacier in the National Park. Birgit reflects on how preserving memories is deeply intertwined with preserving the glacier itself. The stark reality of a glacier slowly disappearing in front of our eyes makes the act of memory creation and preservation more poignant.

 

The collection moves fluidly between documentary and abstraction. Some pieces render the vast, quiet and raw beauty of Iceland's landscapes with crystalline clarity, while others dissolve into abstract forms mirroring the emotional experience of remembering. This constant negotiation between representation and interpretation reflects the nature of memory itself—sometimes vivid, sometimes elusive, always shifting like Iceland's mercurial light.

 

Through this visual exploration, Birgit transforms homesickness and environmental anxiety into a meditation on the eternal tension between personal memory and nature’s inevitable impermanence.

 

But the exhibition is also a reflection on the role of photography. How do we create images that serve as more than a mere reminder of something that’s now lost? How do we use images to keep those places and experiences alive? How do we use photography as a means of regeneration rather than just as an echo of something gone?

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A big thank you to the National Park Centre for giving Birgit the opportunity to exhibit at your beautiful venue!

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