Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.05.2008, Blaðsíða 44

B12 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 06 2008 | Article
The Lodgers
On June 5, German photographer Anne Kathrin Greiner will open
a photographic exhibition in Skotið at the Reykjavik Museum of
Photography. Entitled ‘The Lodgers’, her exhibition is the result of
several trips to the former American Military Air-Base in Keflavík
she visited during a residency last year. She had the opportunity to
explore the area and take photographs of the former base, which
closed in 2006. That year, the US government decided to withdraw
its forces in Iceland and close the base, which they had operated
since 1951. By September 2006, all the facilities had been cleared
out and the last military personnel had packed up and left, leaving
the town and the many houses completely empty.
Greiner is interested in deserted spaces with complex history
and asked why she decided to photograph the former base she ex-
plains: “Before I travelled to Iceland for the residency, I came across
a picture of Icelandic soldiers in Afghanistan while doing research
on the internet. This photograph struck me as odd. Partly because
they looked so out of place and partly also due to the fact that I had
read that Iceland had never attacked another nation. My subsequent
reading about the North-Atlantic Treaty, the closure of the Keflavík
base and people’s reaction to this, led to my decision to visit and
examine this place.”
When she visited in June 2007 the army had already left, so she
had easy access to the whole area and was able to photograph the
interior and exterior space. She explains that although geo-political
history greatly influences the reading of her new work, it is meant
more as a metaphorical and contemplative piece. She says her work
isn’t an objective piece of documentation but rather a piece that “ru-
minates upon themes of loss, abandonment, the fears of the mod-
ern age, the paranoia that is provoked and encouraged as a form
of control and the architecture of our environment as an extension
of our individual and collective psyches.” She furthermore explains
the she uses the notion of an abandoned military base to interpret
such concerns, which she feels are both timeless and universal yet
simultaneously very much about the current cultural and political
miasma.
Asked if her exhibition is in some way a critique on warfare
or the American army bases stationed across the world, she replies:
“The title of the work (The Lodgers) certainly alludes to a concern
with political issues. However, one can view America’s military
presence in Iceland from various angles and I feel that this ambigu-
ity also forms part of my work. Whilst the idea of a lodger implies a
somewhat ‘unsteady’ presence – someone who can come and leave
whenever they decide to do so – there is also the issue of political
changes and uncertainty and cultural influence”
She continues: “I feel that the work addresses the current
climate and that The Lodgers developed from something cultur-
ally specific into a more metaphorical piece, using the notion of an
abandoned military base as a vehicle for some of our most basic or
timeless fears and apprehensions as well as those that are uniquely
sprung from the twentieth century. Coupled with this, and as men-
tioned before, I feel that the presence of the American military in
Iceland is a very complex issue and that my work is intended to raise
and open a dialogue rather than to judge or point fingers.”
Greiner’s photographs will be displayed from June 5 until July 30 at
the Reykjavík Museum of Photography, Tryggvagötu 15.
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