Anna Diljá Sigurðardóttir (b. 1993, Iceland) is a design researcher specializing in communication and information design. With an interest in geopolitics, earth sciences, and cartography, her work investigates how to translate scientific data and journalistic topics into a comprehensive multi-perspective story. Using various medias such as graphical narrative, moving image and sculptural work she focuses on creating an approachable method for understanding and reflecting on the unseen information around us.
Anna Diljá Sigurðardóttir graduated with cum laude from the bachelor program Food non Food at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2019. In the past years, she has gained various work experiences with research-driven studios Quadrature and Tomás Saraceno in Germany, tutoring and lecturing at Design Academy Eindhoven, the Iceland University of the Arts and University of Iceland as well as collaborating with scientific institutes in the Netherlands, Iceland and England (Meteorological Office, Institute of Earth Sciences, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, NIOZ mining research, Wageningen University, British telecommunication, Subcom LLC, TeleGeography and more). She is currently working as an independent researcher in Iceland, specialising in communication and information design, while also tutoring at the MA new enviroments department and BA product design at Iceland University of the Arts.
(Curriculum vitae)
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These interests manifest in works such as: The graduation project from 2019 (ongoing), ‘The Rare Metal Age’, where she collaborated with scientists from the Royal Institute for Sea Research in the Netherlands, to show the urgent subject of mining in the deep sea and the future resources. In 2015 with her first design project ‘Hofsjökull‘ she translated the rapid melting of glaciers in Iceland into a informatic product, where she collaborated with the Nordic project Climate and Energy (the institute of Earth Science and the Icelandic Meteorological office by using datasets and reflecting on the mathematical models. In 2019, she was nominated for the René Smeeth Award for her project ‘Earthly Delights’ that explores the materiality of the element Sulphur and its image in the course of history. In 2020, Anna and her part-time collaborator Ellen Pearson received a research grant for the project ‘Beauty and the Beast’ which is a study on invasive species and floral hazards with a case study on Lupine Nootkatensis. In late 2020, Anna exhibited the work ’Terabytes per second’ at the GEO-design SAND exhibition that was shown at Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands. The project looks into the infrastructure and materiality of the global communication network, where she collaborated with Subcom LLC a leader in defining the undersea cable industry as well as British telecommunication, FARICE, Nextrom, and TeleGeography. In 2021 she was invited to collaborate with the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences department on a research project to explore ways to mediate the importance of Peatlands, in the global landscape, and their deep history in our culture and origins. In 2020-2022, she and designer Romain Laval hosted workshop series called ‘What is Water‘ at the interdisciplinary course at Icelandic University of the Arts. The workshop is a theoretical and experimental laboratory placing the students as active agents for imagining ‘what is water and what can water be?’. In 2023 she and Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen founded Radio Arctic an online radio platform for discussion on Arctic matters merging climate data and geopolitics. Collaborating with experts, scientists, journalists, creatives, and more, we produce live broadcasted discussions and podcasts. Through the means of working with open-source data from Arctic weather stations, the radio envisions the Arctic future forecast. In early 2024, Anna was published in OR3 Troubled Waters by Odious Haus. For OR3, it retreat to the coolness of underground caves, tidal pools and reservoir tanks. Troubled Waters is a tribute to the damp, the dank and the wet— a titanium trove dredged up from the deep.