Lilja Baldursdottir

I work as a producer with artists and photographers on projects such as shows, events, virtual reality, campaigns, photo shoots, videos and even books. My interest in working directly with artists begun when I started working with British artist Joe Simpson while studying at Goldsmiths. 

After moving to New York I started working with people such as Silja Magg, Jamison Ernest and Ruvan Wijesooriya. I also sit on the board of the Patchogue Arts Council. One of the project I am working on with Jamison Ernest is a show he is doing this year. It will be in a 4 story building in Soho and our goal is to provide people with a fun, accessible art experience. My role involves hiring a team of people who work on the show as well as secure funding from sponsors. Recently I finished the production of a virtual reality video with photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya.

I pitched stills from the video to the Icelandic version of Glamour Iceland who loved the project so much that they decided to feature a 14 page story and put one of the images on the cover of their 2015 December issue. The story included an interview with me explaining the concept of the virtual reality video. The video is one of the first of its kind and approaches fashion in a new and exciting way, something that has not been seen before in the world of virtual reality. Ruvan and I also did a exhibition at Art Basel this past December called HOW TO BUY ART. The exhibition was a social experiment on art selling. The concept was that if you liked any of the art work, you were invited to take it off the wall yourself, pay for it via the internet and walk out with your art work on the day. This new approach sparked a lot of interest at the fair and with press.

Before studying at Goldsmiths I had finished a degree in Business Administration. I had a wide interest in creative fields and felt the masters degree programme was the perfect fit for my background and interests. Having a background in business is highly valuable in the art world. I believe the skills I developed at Goldsmiths allowed me to see perspectives from both the sides of business and the side of the creative. I learned so much about the art world, things that I was unaware of and this knowledge is very valuable to me today in my career. I learned practical skills such as how to interact in the art world when it comes to funding and approaches to sponsorships. I learned the different ways of how art is viewed and not viewed by people. 

I gained tremendous practical experience in one of the courses I took, Music Management, where I had to do a real life event, one of the first events I ever did. I acquired entrepreneurial skills as well as furthering my business skills and integrating them into the art world. I met so many great people with different approaches to this field, which allowed me to realise there are many different routes you can take after completing this programme. I am grateful to have been able to learn from all the extremely talented professors Goldsmiths has on its faculty. All in all it was an amazing experience. 

Working with these artists has allowed me to gain a different perspective, on levels I could never have imagined. Being involved in creative processes allows me to gain a wider perspective on the possibilities that are available in the art and business world as a whole and has shown me that the two can absolutely be combined in many ways.