Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.08.2013, Page 32

The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 12 — 2013 32
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Gamla / Old Island
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Come For The Glaciers,
Stay For The Video Art
Artist residencies are springing up all over Iceland, and more international artists are visiting
each year. Jacqueline Breen finds out what they're finger-painting…
Most people in Skagaströnd fish. There are some
marine biologists, some others working the
gas station-slash-burger joint and two friendly
women in the post office. And, for now, there is
one video and performance artist orchestrating
an international dance lesson across the World
Wide Web.
Emily O'Connor recently landed in Skagas-
trönd to undergo a one-month artistic residency.
Stepping off the little bus on Iceland's windy
north-west coast, the 26-year-old Australian
looked around and thought: ‘Wow. Ok.’
"I'm just walking along the street laughing all
the time because it’s so good," she says of her
new home. Skagaströnd is a coastal fishing and
trade port, and the artistic residents have nestled
in to an old fishing plant. On her first day Emily
charged up the nearest mountain and stared out
at a moody, changeable ocean. "I've never had
such a physical and emotional reaction to a place
as I do here," Emily says, grinning and shaking
her head. "I can't explain it. The landscape just
does something to you."
The residency run-down
Roughly three hundred artistic types like Emily
land in Iceland each year to undergo residencies,
drifting in from Australia, America, India and
everywhere else. The two biggest residencies
are SIM, in Reykjavík, and Nes, in Skagaströnd,
and there are smaller ones scattered all over the
place.
The idea is to offer living and working space
for artists to meet new people, form new ideas
and produce all kinds of work. Residencies usu-
ally last between one and six months, and al-
though most artists pay a fee, some receive
grants to cover costs.
Some residencies request finished art works,
and encourage artists to contribute by hosting
open days or workshops. Others simply offer
space and time to think and create. The bigger
residencies are great for collaboration while
smaller ones, like Herhúsið in Siglufjörður (which
hosts just one isolated artist at a time), are better
for quiet contemplation.
Creating dialogue
“We have a boom in residencies right now,” says
Kristjana Rós Guðjohnsen, who works at Visit
Iceland. Within that marketing machine, Kristja-
na works to promote art and culture. She reckons
there are roughly 11 residencies running at pres-
ent, but says that the number fluctuates—their
popularity is growing, and informal artist-run
initiatives can pop up quite quickly. Kristjana has
worked at Reykjavík's SIM and is an artist her-
self, so she knows her way around a paintbrush.
These days she has her own studio in SIM, just
one floor below the foreigners.
“SIM is just one big apartment downtown,”
Kristjana says, “and the house is packed.” Ice-
land's oldest residency, SIM opened in 2002 with
just one resident. Today it welcomes thirteen
international artists each month. The residents
live on the fourth floor, and there are 44 studios
below for both international and local artists. In
this tiny glittery galaxy of creativity, and an ideal
place for local and international artists to hang
out and talk shop. “It can be really nice to go up-
stairs and just talk to the residency artists,” Krist-
jana tells me. “They're very welcoming, there's
no door—you just go upstairs and say hi.”
This, of course, was all part of the plan—SIM
was designed to create dialogue. “It's better
today, but Iceland used to be quite isolated,”
Kristjana says. Founders Ingibjörg Gunnlaugs-
dóttir and Áslaug Thorlacius conceptualised the
residency as an outstretched hand to the outside
world. “It was a huge asset for artists and also
society to get foreign artists to come to Iceland
and learn from each other,” Kristjana continues.
The residency holds artist talks at the beginning
of each month and exhibitions at the end, and
Kristjana says local artists and local everythings
turn up interested and supportive.
Well, duh…Iceland's appeal
Ask anyone why they chose to come to Iceland
and they're likely to point at anything, in any di-
rection, and say “well, duh.” Ask the artistic resi-
dents and they'll do the same, but went into a bit
more detail for us. The dramatic landscape made
everyone’s list, and totally seduced British fine
artist Emma Stibbon. “The preoccupying theme
to my work is landscape in transition,” Emma
says, and here she has plenty of volcanoes, gla-
ciers and transatlantic rifts to keep her canvases
full of dramatic black-and-white sketches.
Emily O'Connor liked the island's isolation.
“I didn't want it to be another Sydney project,”
she says of her dance piece. She could feasibly
create the same work back home in Australia, but
wanted to expand her horizons, artistically and
geographically. And, of course, residencies help
ease the Icelandic strain on the wallet. Artists are
rarely rolling in króna, and residencies make af-
fordable what might be otherwise impossible. “It
really gives artists a great opportunity to be here
on a budget,” says Emma Stibbon. Like many
travellers she fell hard for Iceland on her first trip,
but recognised that love don't come for free. A
one-month residency at Listhús in Ólafsfjördur
was, for Emma, financially within reach.
And it seems the residencies are good for Ice-
land's wallet as well; their contribution to tourism
revenue is significant, and growing. The small
scale's easy to see: “Well, the artists all buy plane
tickets!" says Kristveig Halldórsdóttir, who, along
with Alda Sigurðardóttir, runs the Gullkistan resi-
dency in Laugarvatn. The bigger picture is harder
to quantify, but the trickle-down effect is obvi-
ous: more activity means more people buying
more things across Iceland. Kristjana from Visit
Iceland says that almost 40% of international
visitors cite art and culture as their key reason for
coming.
Selling it to the world
It's a funny old world, economically. Art and cul-
ture normally struggle in tough financial times,
so I was surprised to find that many of the resi-
dencies opened their doors after 2008. These art-
ists just want to tell me about the bright side of
2008. "During the crisis the krona fell 50%, and
that meant it was easier for foreigners to come,"
says Kristveig from Gullkistan. Kristjana also
sees a silver lining painted around the economic
cloud, and says the crisis reenergised Icelandic
creativity. “Before the crisis people were too
busy, and time was money,” she tells me, “and
now all of a sudden artists had an opportunity to
do things they couldn't do before. The creative
industry has actually blossomed after the crisis.”
All this might be old news to the average
Icelander. Many are familiar with the residen-
cies because they themselves often wind up
in the frames. A resident artist in Skagaströnd
recently directed an interactive theatre piece
staged by the townspeople, and local children
can now make a mean kite thanks to a residency
workshop. In fact, Emily's worried her new neigh-
bours are already arted out. “I've got to ask some
of them to be in my piece,” she tells me. “I'm wor-
ried they're all just thinking 'oh, another bloody
artist.'"
For now the residency coordinators are brain-
storming ways to work better together, and there
are various plans for expansion. Kristveig and
Alda are working to secure Gullkistan in a per-
manent home in an old school building, and the
Nordanbal crew at Hrísey is hosting artists cel-
ebrating Akureyri's 150th anniversary this year.
The residencies' profile is on the rise politically
as well. Kristjana's position at Visit Iceland was
only created earlier this year, which suggests Ice-
land's image-makers see some real potential in
this whole 'art' thing.
And they say creativity is contagious. Ska-
gaströnd's mayor recently took his kids along
to Nes for that kite-making workshop, and said
the residencies were inspiring his neighbours to
embrace creativity. Who knows—it might not be
too long before all those Skagaströnd fishermen
start whipping up video art in their spare time.
Words and photos by Jacqueline Breen
Most people in Skagaströnd fish. There are some marine biologists, some
others working the gas station-slash-burger joint and two friendly women
in the post office. And, for now, there is one video and performance artist
orchestrating an international dance lesson across the World Wide Web.
Learn more about these residencies at www.resartis.org Art