Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.07.2013, Side 48

48The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 9 — 2013
New Kid On The Iceblock Stepping Out
From government fishing initiatives to the
evolution of festivals in Iceland, Marteinn tells
us about the role he hopes Pólar Festival will
play in creating a new and responsible vision
for experiencing the Icelandic summer.
Know your roots
In just the last decade we have seen a major
evolution of festivals—from the village fes-
tival to the art and music-oriented festival.
According to Marteinn, it all started with
Þjóðhátíð in the Westman Islands, a village
festival that has taken place since 1874. The
festival has grown in fame and infamy alike
to become the biggest festival in Iceland. "It's
become a carnival," Marteinn says, "in a good
way." The essence of Þjóðhátíð is a spotlight
on the village it is held in. Then came the rise
of the music and arts festivals. "I think it prob-
ably began with Iceland Airwaves answering
a demand for all of the musical output around
here—there is so much music here," Marteinn
says.
Enter Pólar Festival. Marteinn describes it
as a hybrid of festivals: "It's not somewhere to
go and get piss drunk like Þjóðhátíð, but we do
want to highlight the village that it's in. That's
what comes first and foremost, the setting.
But it's through music and art and lots of par-
ticipation that it becomes attractive."
Spotlight Stöðvarfjörður
"The setting itself is unique, in a very typical
way," Marteinn says. Stöðvarfjörður is a small
fishing town, one of the smallest in Iceland. Its
current population is down to 190. Just a few
years ago it rested at around 400, but things
changed very fast with the privatisation of
fishing industry. Fishing quotas were consoli-
dated amongst bigger shareholders, and the
industry moved elsewhere. Naturally people
followed, abandoning the economically ailing
towns for areas where they could get jobs.
But it's the people who stayed in these
towns that play the real characters in this sto-
ry. "Instead of giving up when everything was
taken from them, they became very resource-
ful and creative," Marteinn says, with an indi-
rect sense of pride. A few years back there was
talk of demolishing Stöðvarfjörður's aban-
doned fish factory, until a group of "artists and
innovators" got together and rerouted the fate
of the factory. Today it serves as a community
kitchen, a concert venue, and on July 12, it will
be home to the first annual Pólar Festival.
The new cultural tourism
Though it may be physically isolated, Pólar
festival is part of a bigger social and cultural
context. "Icelandic tourism is changing very
fast, and we have to adapt quickly," Marte-
inn explains. He distinguishes between two
"types" of tourism. There's nature tourism,
where people fly in, rent a car, and indulge
in the vast scenery of the Ring Road or the
Golden Circle and the countryside. Then there
is cultural tourism, where people come look-
ing for the music and arts and the downtown
Reykjavík scene.
Again, enter Pólar Festival. "What I want
to do is take advantage of all these festivals
popping up in the small towns around Iceland
and make them part of this new kind of cul-
tural tourism, a cultural explosion around the
countryside," Marteinn explains, bridging the
excitement of festivals and the exhilaration of
Icelandic nature experience into one highly
concentrated dose. "I want to tell people who
are thinking about visiting Iceland: 'take two
months in the summer, drive the Ring Road
around the country and go to all the festivals
on the way,'" Marteinn says.
"There is a lot going on in Iceland that
I don't agree with right now," Marteinn re-
marks, "like heavy industry. It's not economi-
cal and it's super taxing on the environment.
Plus, we can't have all of our eggs in one bas-
ket like that. Cultural tourism, and my vision
for it, is a more responsible way to generate
income."
There's nothing wrong with sitting in your
living room, eating skyr and bananas and lis-
tening to your new Sigur Rós album for the
twelfth time since its release. But since it is
summertime, there's not a whole lot right with
it either. To help lift you off that couch, we've
lined up the next two weeks worth of festivals
happening all over Iceland and smashed them
together into two easy-to-swallow doses of
music, art and culture.
West Coast
In the true spirit of summer, start things off
with your toes in the glowing red sands at
the third annual Rauðasandur festival. It goes
down July 4-7 on the pristine shoreline of
Rauðasandur beach in the Westfjords. The
lineup exhibits a range of easy to listen to
genres—from country to folk to blues to reg-
gae—with artists like Prins Póló, Borko, YLJA,
Snorri Helgason, and more.
Five days separate Rauðasandur from its
more boom-bap friendly musical companion,
Extreme Chill Festival. Use the time to wind
your way around the Westfjords or cruise the
countryside before touching down in Hellis-
sandur for this all-things-electronic music
festival from July 12-14. Expect local favorites
like Samaris and Úlfur alongside international
acts like Mimetic and Mixmaster Morris in the
twenty-two band line-up.
End the ten-day journey back in the warm
embrace of Reykjavík at the first ever Ingólf-
shátíð, a weekend-long festival dedicated to
Iceland's Viking culture and history. Ingólf-
shátíð happens July 13-14 in downtown Reyk-
javík's Hljómskálagarður park. The festival is
appropriately named after Ingólfur Arnarson,
the first Viking settler of Iceland.
East Coast
Looking for something a little more adventur-
ous? Diverse? A little more…metal, maybe?
July 10-13, the small East coast fishing village
Neskaupstaður hosts the Eistnaflug Metal
Festival. This annual festival unites the ang-
sty teens, bow-tied businessmen, and that girl
from your art class in one tiny fishing town to
bring the head-banging, rock & rolling, beer
chugging metal head out in all of them.
If Eistnaflug doesn't quite sound like your
cup of tea, how about checking out the very
first Pólar Festival from July 12-14 instead.
Just an hour's drive south in the smaller vil-
lage of Stöðvarfjörður, Pólar is somewhere
between a traditional village festival and an
arts festival with a number of exhibits and
workshops focused around culture, creation,
and collaboration in the small fishing town.
Whether it's the rush of the mosh pit or the
refreshing content of the seaside, channel all
that positive creative energy by buzzing over
to LungA Festival on July 14, just up the coast
in Seyðisfjörður. Indulge your creative side
in a week's worth of music, art, and culture
at this workshop-heavy participation-driven
youth festival.
By the time you get back, wind-whipped,
dirty-haired, and with a week's worth of laun-
dry to do, we don't blame you if all you want to
do is throw on your headphones and make a
beeline for the couch. You deserve it, and we'll
stop bothering you with all of this "go outside
and have some fun" motherly nagging. At least
until next issue.
PÓLAR FESTIVAL! THE FIRST FESTIVAL EVER IN ICELAND!!! Oh, wait, we have tons of festivals. All the time.
Especially in the Summer. So, why another? With Pólar Festival's debut weeks away, we sat down with one
third of the festival's collective mastermind, Marteinn Sindri Jónsson, to ask him personally.
Marteinn Sindri Jónsson thinks that it's time to start behaving responsibly, Iceland
by Parker Yamasaki
12 14 Stöðvarfjörður, East Iceland
Workshops in poetry and dance improvisation run all weekend
long, punctuated by theatre performances by local youth
theatre groups, and capped with concerts by Just Another
Snake Cult, Boogie Trouble, and other Icelandic favourites. JULY JULY
Check out their project page at http://www.karolinafund.com/project/view/122
to learn more and help support them if you are so inclined. Art
Magnús Andersen