Steina’s magnificent video and sound installation Borealis is presented at the National Gallery for the first time since it was first shown in 1993, over three decades ago. Borealis, meaning “northern”, dates from a period when the artist turned her attention outside the studio to the natural world. Here, she returned to her native Iceland, where she made the video and sound field recordings of Arctic flora and of water cascading over rocks and soil that form the basis of the work. The videos are projected at an immense scale – each of the four screens measuring nearly four meters high – such that the viewer becomes immersed in a realm of turbulent movement and polyphonic sound. Moving back and forth between clear focus and blur, the imagery seems by turns representational and abstract. The work has been called “an ode to nature and its elemental forces.”
Steina (Icelandic, b. 1940)
Borealis, 1993
Two-channel video with synchronized sound; 10-minute repeating loop
Borealis (1993) was acquired by the National Gallery of Iceland in 2007. This edition is a limited version approved by the artist in 2023. Courtesy of Steina Vasulka, BERG Contemporary and the Vasulka Foundation.
Photo: Milos Stnrad, Installation of Borealis at the House of Arts, Brno
