Ásta is a graphic designer. She received her MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. 

She is originally from Iceland and currently based in Los Angeles. 

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A Story that Never Begins
Video, 2022

 

In a collaboration with Emily Bright, we created a video that uses the language of title cards to tell a story that never begins. The project was based on this idea of the “good life” that Lauren Berlant talks about in her book Cruel Optimism, particularly this paragraph:

“We like to imagine that our life follows some kind of trajectory, like the plot of a novel, and that by recognizing its arc we might, in turn, become its author. But often what we feel instead is a sense of precariousness—a gut-level suspicion that hard work, thrift, and following the rules won’t give us control over the story, much less guarantee a happy ending. For all that, we keep on hoping, and that persuades us to keep on living.”

The video works as an introduction to something that never actually begins. The video script draws heavily on text from both “Ghosts of My Life” and “Cruel Optimism.” I weave the phrasing from these two texts with my own writing.