Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.10.2014, Page 14

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2014
Politics | Reykjavík
With university becoming more expen-
sive in many parts of the world, main-
stream education tends to lean towards
the former, feeding the idea that higher
qualifications should serve first and
foremost as a path to economic security
rather than to an enlightened viewpoint.
The “university experience” has come
to mean both a kind of holiday camp for
young adults to begin establishing them-
selves away from their family, and a pro-
gramme of economically motivated and
vocational-minded learning. Education,
cast in such stark terms, can be seen as
an investment to be weighed against fu-
ture earning potential.
Of course, not everyone sees it this
way. Most people passing through arts
education aren’t in it primarily for the
pay, but to pursue their chosen subject
driven by the hunger to learn and de-
velop, both personally and creatively.
Whilst relatively few might end up
making a living solely as a playwright,
painter or poet, arts education nonethe-
less produces creative
individuals suited to a
wide range of valuable
roles in society.
Exactly how to go
from being a graduate
to a financially stable
arts practitioner or
a fully fledged culture worker has al-
ways been something of an opaque and
uncharted process, without the relative
job security that comes with training
as a doctor or a teacher. Many struggle,
taking a while to discover the niche in
which they can apply their talents, or
falling into other jobs along the way.
But this autumn in Seyðisfjörður,
over on the eastern coast of Iceland, a
new folk school has appeared to help
young artists realise their potential and
find a good path forward.
A hidden place
Seyðisfjörður feels like something of a
hidden place. The road into the town is
the infamous Fjarðarheiði mountain
pass, which has to be ploughed several
times a day in winter; the surrounding
mountains cradle the fjord on all sides,
meaning the sun sets early behind the
clifftops, and the town is often held un-
der a delicate layer of mist.
In recent years, it's become an East
Iceland cultural centre, with several
enclaves appearing: from the Skaftafell
residency and gallery, to a museum dedi-
cated to Iceland's industrial history, to
the vibrant and increasingly venerated
LungA Festival—an event comprising
arts workshops, gigs and a host of other
events, bringing together many of Ice-
land's brightest creative minds in one
place.
One of the key people behind LungA
is Björt Sigfinnsdóttir, a Seyðisfjörður
native and a graduate of Kaospilots,
a forward-thinking Danish business
school.
"The LungA festival has been an an-
nual event since the summer of 2000,"
she explains. "It was made to answer
the needs of young, creative people that
wanted an expressive playground for ar-
tistic output."
The festival has developed since
then, becoming an im-
portant mark on the
summer calendar for
its participants, many
of whom travel from
around the world to be
there. "This festival is
unique—it has an en-
ergy that isn’t to be found anywhere else,
due to a mixture of things," says Björt.
"There’s the natural surroundings, and
the openness of Seyðisfjörður's society.
And then, we provide the framework,
from within which the participants cre-
ate all the content, resulting in a differ-
ent outcome each year. The feeling is that
LungA's participants are in control of its
direction, and anything is possible."
The wellspring of excitement and
positivity generated by the festival has
naturally led on to new ideas. "We found
we wanted to use this energy for some-
thing more," smiles Björt, "to build on
it, and capture it over a longer period of
time."
New school thinking
The idea of a LungA School was long in
the planning, germinating into a solid
concept in 2010. "Many people had talk-
ed in the past about establishing some
kind of educational institution in Seyð-
isfjörður, as the atmosphere of the town
is inspiring and fertile," Björt explains.
"We’ve worked hard on developing the
concept, creating a solid platform with
good collaboration partners, making a
business plan, designing the curricu-
lum, and putting the board of the school
together. It took just over three years to
prepare the opening of the school be-
fore our our first test month, the LungA
School BETA programme."
This pilot version happened in
March, attracting thirty Icelandic and
international applicants who under-
went a detailed interview process via
email and Skype conversations, with a
final seventeen forming the first LungA
School group. "We figured that we'd
need a better understanding of who they
were in order to put together the ‘right’
group," Björt explains. "We were look-
ing for a group that would be able to
both support and challenge each other—
diverse in the sense of different back-
grounds, cultures, ages, et cetera."
The test programme happened semi-
publicly, with Seyðisfjörður locals and
interested people invited to the opening
and closing parties, and a healthy flow
of documentation spilling out via social
media. Afterwards, several of the par-
ticipants said the experience had been
nothing less than life-changing.
"It was great, very educational for all
of us," Björt says, "and not least for the
students, which was a very good feel-
ing for us. We got a fantastic group from
eight countries and very different back-
grounds. We tested out different parts
of the curriculum and got a lot of feed-
back—both directly, and also through
observing their reactions. It was just
great in every single way."
Plugging the holes
LungA School doesn’t formally target
any given demographic, but the course
appeals to younger people from various
creative disciplines. As such, the school
functions as a bridge from traditional
arts education, empowering students to
put their creativity to work in different
ways.
The debate over what higher education is, and what it
should be for, is an interesting one that stretches across
the continents and back through the centuries. Indeed,
as even the dictionary shows, the word “education” can
mean, amongst other definitions, “giving or receiving sys-
tematic instruction” or “an enlightening experience.”
Breathing
Life Into Arts
Education
LungA School seeks to empower
students with a creative, bilateral
learning process
Words by John Rogers
Photo provided by LungA School
“It's an experience of
going far away from
your normal setting and
routines and diving into
something unknown.”
January 12, – April 5, 2015 LungA School
Education | Art
EYMUNDSSON
BOOKSTORES
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THE LIST REPRESENTS SALES FROM ALL EYMUNDSSON BOOKSTORES
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109
43 Njals Saga - Wordsworth Translated by Lee M. Hollander
Jar City
Arnaldur Indriðason
Die schönsten
isländischen Sagas
Rolf Heller
Sagas Of The Icelanders
Ýmsir höfundar
Independent People
Halldór Laxness
Under The Glacier
Halldór Laxness
I Remember You
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Ashes to Dust
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Day is Dark
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Die schönsten
Erzählungen Islands
Soffía Birgisdóttir