Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2012, Qupperneq 35

35 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2012ART
their frames. Using Icelandic wool, Guðrún Gunnlaugsdóttir has knitted a
new narrative for product design within Iceland.
“SAGA TIL NæSTA BæJAR”
The exhibit’s Icelandic title roughly translates to “something to tell at the next
farm,” a phrase that hearkens to a period of greater isolation in Iceland. When
people went out, they would travel from farm to farm. If they heard a story or
came upon something of fascination, it would be something “worth telling at
the next farm.”
For Harpa, who named the exhibit, the idea is simply that the nascent iden-
tity of product design in Iceland is something worth talking about. “This is a
phrase that everyone’s heard before, but nobody has thought of in this context.
Icelandic design has always existed, but designers and furniture makers have
never had the same recognition as other artists,” she says.
Harpa references product design in a country like Denmark, where people
know their designers by name and might pass down furniture heirlooms the
same way Icelanders would jewellery. She hopes the exhibit will familiarise
Icelanders with the resourcefulness and individualism of their own designers,
their own materials, their own handicrafts. When the circuit completes and
Icelanders’ faces light up with pride, she feels one step closer to reminding
them of the old methods and capabilities stowed in cultural memory.
Harpa’s profession is multitasking: exhibiting, researching, collecting. She
thinks that people are only beginning to be aware of this, the only design
museum in Iceland, and too, the wave of great product design washing up
on native soil. Describing her take on the museum’s progress, Harpa takes
the same attitude of rough capability as the product designers she’s so f luent
discussing.
“I told my friend before that I was working in a start-up,” she jokes. “My
friend, who does not work in product design, said back to me: ‘No Harpa, what
you’re working in is a green field.’ Nobody has done this before.”
“
Icelandic design has
always existed, but
designers and furniture
makers have never had
the same recognition as
other artists.
„