Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Blaðsíða 34

Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Blaðsíða 34
At the Grill Market the seasons are in control of the menu with all the freshest ingredients available - from the sea, heaths, lakes, rivers and farms. In our cooking methods we go for the origin of the ingredient and use fire, smoke, wood and charcoal to achieve deep, rich, earthy flavors that we balance out with freshness. The result is an unexpected cuisine where Icelandic tradition and modern times come together. Weekdays: 11:30 - 14:00 and 18:00 - 22:30 Weekends: 18:00 - 23:30 LÆKJARGATA 2A | 571 7777 | GRILLMARKADURINN.IS Harpa, who is the director of the Icelandic Museum of Design and Applied Art, points to the twined rope on “Húsgagn Nr. 2,” a storage piece by Brynjar Sigurðarson at the front of the museum’s gallery space. The rope wrap- ping its wooden coat hooks was made by hand with net- needles and nylon string, using a process Brynjar learned from a 70-year-old Icelandic shark hunter. “Iceland is a country without much industry,” Harpa says, but one that has a “can-do attitude.” Just a decade ago, a question about ‘Icelandic product design’ would have only returned blank stares. Since then, international breakthroughs like Sigga Heimis and Katrín Ólína have paved the way for the growing number of young Icelan- dic designers, many of them graduates from the Iceland Academy of Arts product design department, which opened in 2001. The museum’s latest exhibit, “Saga til næsta bæjar,” is an exploration of the unique materials, processes, and ap- proach Icelanders take in a field that, in most other places, is wedded to a long tradition of product manufacturing. WE CAN DO MORE WITH THAT These days, the bones, hides, horns and other by-products of animal processing in Iceland are considered offal next to fish and meat. But it wasn’t always that way. Before the advent of plastics and imports, animal products were used in design on almost every level of daily life: eating, cook- ing, farming, playing—even building. What’s unique about Iceland is that this history is not distinct from liv- ing memory. When designers and artists ref lect on their roots, they start driving. Enter Brynjar Sigurðarson. The story of “Húsgagn Nr. 2” lies in the village of Vopnafjörður in north-eastern Ice- land. After driving there from Reykjavík in 2008, Bryn- jar found himself awed by the functional forms of shark houses, fishing factories, and netting needles. For a de- signer, the question posed is one of synthesis: ‘What more can we do with this?’ Sketches and prototypes eventually led to wood planks fanned out as coat hooks, reminiscent of hooks used for rubber gloves in fish factories. The planks are tied with ropes handmade, and functionality is stacked with a mounted white storage bin. Taking in the coarse combination of materials used to assemble “Hús- gagn Nr. 2,” you can almost smell the fish oil. As Harpa explains, Brynjar is not alone. Icelandic product designers of the past decade have tapped into regular Icelandic life processes, tinkering with raw mate- rials as diverse as fish bones, moss and chocolate to make jewellery, slick fish bone model-making kits, and volcano- shaped candies that don’t feel manufactured so much as created. Product designers are repurposing and refresh- ing handicrafts, and adding value. The sheer quantity of product innovations in 10 years’ time ref lects what Harpa calls Icelanders’ unique willingness to “just dive in.” FROM THE EARTH, FOR THE EARTH The gradual emergence of Icelandic design has been shaped by an international awakening to “responsible de- sign” that began roughly a decade ago. Recycling materi- als, setting conventional materials aside and finding ways to use other ones—these are all features of the concept. At the same time, the ethics of responsible design have served as a reminder that art can be close to nature and close to the Earth. The museum’s exhibit includes Guðrún Lilja Gunnlaugsdóttir’s “Inner Beauty”—a furni- ture piece made from layers of plywood f lowers randomly assorted to evoke the depth of humans’ connection to na- ture. Cased with round-edged wood, the piece works vari- ously as a low table, bench or stool. Guðrún has also worked on “Birch,” a set of small birch branches dipped in silver. Pieces like these seek to enter spaces uncommonly reserved for art—the wall beneath a staircase, the centre of a table. Reminders of an earlier time before Iceland’s settlement, when birches were the only trees on the island; manifestations of the question: where else can product design get a foot in the door here? THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A WOOL BLANKET Rough, warm Icelandic wool fuelled the trade for Russian oil and enjoyed high prices internationally through the 1980s. After cheaper synthetic f leece crashed the market, the soul-searching began: How can raw wool and simple blankets be turned into true artisanal products? Brands like Vík Prjónsdóttir emerged later to answer the question with ingenuity, stretching the boundaries of Icelandic wool and mapping them with pieces like “The Landscape Blanket,” a woolly take on volcanic topography in three dimensions. Wool is the weave for Vík Prjónsdóttir’s designers, but the mythic ideas from which they source their work are lodged in the rich narrative lore of the North. Another piece included in the exhibit is “Hidden World,” a med- ley of blanket, cape, and “healing hands” that neatly folds magic into the world of product design. Wool is being used now not just for haute production but for experimental repurposing. “Knitted couch” dem- onstrates the possibilities in stripping down older imita- tion furniture models and weaving a new story through 34 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2012ART The exhibition is open daily at the Icelandic Museum of Design and Applied Arts, until October 14. Words Nic Cavell Photos Anna María Sigurjónsdóttir Toward An Icelandic Product Design “If I had to say,” Harpa Þórsdóttir says, “the identity of Icelandic product design is in the materials: fish bone, fish skin, knitted wool. And it’s in the handicrafts we do.”

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