Ragnhild Hjalmarsdóttir Højgaard

Ragnhild Hjalmarsdóttir Højgaard is a Faroese textile artist and designer with a background in tailoring and holds degrees from The Royal Danish Academy of Architecture and Design in Copenhagen.

For the past decade, Højgaard has worked primarily with Faroese wool - a once-prized agrarian material now treated as industrial waste. By repurposing this so-called “worthless” fiber, she transforms it into something deeply meaningful, imbuing it with value beyond the purely economic.

Through various textile techniques, she creates art pieces that bring a rustic serenity to contemporary spaces. She honors the wool’s natural beauty, allowing its raw textures and undyed earthy tones to shine through. By reclaiming and elevating a local resource that would otherwise be discarded, she actively engages with these questions through material and form. Merging tradition with playfulness and ingenuity, her pieces are timeless, tactile, and evocative.This distinct artistic approach has led to commissions from renowned names such as Noma, BIG and Hilton, alongside her participation in numerous art exhibitions.

A key element of her philosophy is the role of craftsmanship in fostering meaningful connections between nature, culture, and people. In an era where Western society has lost touch with materials, production methods, and the origins of what we consume, her work stands as a quiet rebellion - insisting on the importance of preserving and reinterpreting heritage for the future.

Through her work, Højgaard doesn’t just create; she educates. She invites us to reconnect with materials, rediscover the wisdom of tradition, and rethink sustainability beyond empty buzzwords. Her art is a call to awareness - a tactile, visual, and deeply cultural reminder that the future of design and art must be rooted in an understanding of the past, rather than just discarding it.

Through her practice, Højgaard revitalizes a near forgotten and lost material while challenging us to reconsider our relationship with the world around us. Her work is both an homage to the past and a vision for a more conscious future - where art, tradition, and technology can intertwine in meaningful ways.

Blockchain refers to a digital system where objects can be given a unique identity. The object can be anything; a digital currency, an apple, or a ball of yarn. As the item moves through a chain - or thread - every move is registered, ensuring that the same original item is tracked on its way. This makes it possible to follow the object from its origin to its end, ensuring transparency.

The art installation “Block Chain” is a material manifestation of the blockchain concept. The piece is handwoven in the five faroese natural wool colors: white, fair gray, dark gray, fair brown, and dark brown. Each color runs from beginning to end, changing every time it meets another color. This simple logic, where one thread meets another, forms a system that makes it possible to track the origin of the five colors and how they merge into 25 unique color combinations.

In this way, connections are made between the realms of the tactile and virtual, the near and the distant, as well as between the past and present.