Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir

Ólöf Gerður Sigfúsdóttir
Born: December 13,1975, Iceland
Address: Framnesvegur 27
101 Reykjavík
Phone: +354 552 2106, 699 7066
Email: olof@akademia.is

Education

2002 MA in Social Sciences, University of Chicago. Thesis title: Authenticity, Technology and Aesthetics: Hybrid art in the tourist art system in Lagos
Fulbright grant 2001-2002
Fieldwork in Nigeria, funding from the University of Chicago

2000 BA in anthropology, University of Iceland. Thesis title: Music, Identity and Truth
1998-1999 Erasmus scholarship in Rome, Università Roma Tre
1997 Fieldtrip to Greenland.

Experience and Research

2006 Exhibition curator for African Souvenir in Iceland. In collaboration with Gerðuberg Cultural Centre.

2006 Lecturer, University of Iceland, Icelandic Academy of the Arts, and Bifröst Business School.

2006 Conference Manager for the international conference Images of the North.

2005 Project Director for the Reykjavik Academy. Curator for a series of lectures and symposium on Collecting, in collaboration with Gerðuberg Cultural Center.

2004 Preliminary research for the interdisciplinary research project “Images of the North”, in collaboration with ReykjavíkurAkademían.

2003-04 English teacher at Anglo-American school, a private language school in Rome, Italy.
Preparation and the shooting of documentary “Near Distance”.

2000-2001 Secretary in an engineering consultant company, VST, in Iceland. Administrative work, computer skills, archiving.

Summer 2004, 2001, 2000, 1999: Tourist guide in Iceland, for IT and Safaríferðir. English and Italian.

1999-2000 Tutor for mentally ill children at BUGL, state hospital in Iceland. Night shifts.

Publication

2006 Book chapter on African art, to be published in Icelandic in November 2006. Editor: Jónína Einarsdóttir, UNESCO grant.
2006 “Cultural Heritage in No Man’s Land”, on www.kstan.is (Menningararfur í Einskismannslandi)

Lectures

2006 “African Souvenir in Postcolonial Context”, at the conference Managing the Postcolonial Experience, University of Aarhus (August).
2006 “The Souvenir as Cultural Memory: African tourist art and social change”, at the conference Technologies of Memory in the Arts, University of Radboud (May).
2006 “Icelanders – the Arty Nation”, at the conference Colors and Lights of the North, University of Stockholm (March).
2005 “On African Souvenirs”, at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts and Kauphöllin.
“The Life and Destiny of Collected Objects”, at Gerðuberg Culture Center.
2004 “On Cultural Brokerage and African Tourist Art”, at the Anthropological Association of Iceland.

Language Skills

Fluent languages: English, Italian, and German.
Limited knowledge: French, Danish.

Memberships

The Anthropological Association of Iceland
Afríka 20:20, an African NGO
The Reykjavik Academy

Boards

President of the NGO Africa 20:20, 2006
Vice President of the ReykjavikAkademy,2006, Board member 2004-2005
Member of the editing board of ATVIK book series, 2005