In 2018 and 2019, MONA traveled with artist Egill Sæbjörnsson to his hometown of Reykjavik, Iceland to document the first two editions of his exhibition, ›Mom’s Balls‹.

The exhibition was initiated by Karen Wright (writer, curator and co-founder of Modern Painters magazine), and presents an intergenerational dialogue between the artist, his mother Ágústa Oddsdóttir (*1947), and his grandmother, the late Elín Jónsdóttir (1921–2010).

For the opening day program, MONA documented visitors as they were led through the exhibition’s several locations, including the Old City Library, where works by grandmother and mother, as well as Sæbjörnsson were exhibited side by side; Hótel Holt, home to hundreds of works by some of Iceland’s key twentieth century artists; the future site of Skúli Mogensen’s sculpture park outside of Reykjavik, which also displayed works by Ágústa and Elín amongst works by contemporary Icelandic artists; and Nedri-Hals i Kjos, the family’s old farm house, where works by grandmother and mother were installed in an immersive environment, recreating the atmosphere of their domestic life and Ágústa’s childhood.

The 2019 edition of ›Mom’s Balls‹ presents the work of ten artists, including Egill, who examine the theme of recycling – a topic that relates to the practice of both Ágústa Oddsdóttir and her mother Elín Jónsdóttir, and the relationship between them.

Recycling has been an important aspect of Ágústa’s practice since the 1990’s, when she started using found materials at home to make her art.

She was also influenced by her mother’s hand-crafted objects and her mother’s generation, who were always reusing their old materials and rarely throwing anything away.

In honor of this relationship between mother and daughter and their respective practices, curator Karen Wright came up with the title ›Mom’s Balls‹, referring to Ágústa’s artwork of balls made out of recycled clothes from her family that otherwise would have been thrown away.