Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.06.2015, Qupperneq 6

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 20116 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 7 — 2015
Politics | The art of the possible
The Icelandic Environment Association
and the Iceland Nature Conservation
Association (INCA) recently held a con-
ference to bring together a diverse group
of people to discuss the value of Iceland’s
Highlands. Arguably the most interest-
ing thing to come out of the conference
was an attendee’s estimate that the High-
lands were worth 80 billion ISK.
Sigurður Jóhannesson came up with
the figure by extrapolating the findings
of German economist David Bothe, who,
in 2003, asked a sample of 1,000 Iceland-
ers how much more they would be will-
ing to pay for electricity in exchange for
leaving the Highlands around Kárahn-
júkar dam in East Iceland untouched.
He found, with a response rate of 33.6%,
that Icelanders considered the economic
value of the land, untouched, to be two
billion ISK. Taking into consideration the
rise in the Consumer Price Index, and the
fact that the total size of the Highlands
is some 20 times larger than the area
around Kárahnjúkar, Sigurður argued
the highlands were worth at least 80 bil-
lion ISK.
This calculation marks the first step
towards a cost-benefit analysis in the
discussion of conservation versus differ-
ent uses of Icelandic nature. Since 2000,
new projects must go through an envi-
ronmental impact assessment, and the
energy companies perform economic
feasibility studies, but to date no attempts
have been made to compare the econom-
ic benefits of different land uses.
With growing tourism this question is
becoming more pressing. As Chair of the
INCA board Árni Finnsson points out, it
has become more obvious that electric-
ity generation for industry, especially
large aluminum smelters, adds remark-
ably little to the Icelandic economy. “The
tourism industry has grown by leaps and
bounds,” he says, “too fast for the author-
ities to respond adequately, and to ensure
that the natural resource which attracts
all the tourists is protected.”
Considering the growth of tourism
in recent years, some have argued that
the 80 billion figure is a low estimate.
Although contingent valuation is widely
used in assessments of environmental
damage in the US, such studies require a
very careful design and more than 327 re-
sponses. Moreover, it seems questionable
that one can simply multiply the findings
from Bothe, as Sigurður does. The value
of the Highlands is more than just the
sum of its parts. Moreover, any evalua-
tion of the highlands must take into con-
sideration the explosive growth of the
tourism industry in the past few years.
Especially considering the fact that
in 2014 the export earnings from tour-
ism were 303 billion ISK, and since 80%
of tourists name the natural beauty of
Iceland as their main reason for visiting,
it seems reasonable to assume the annual
contribution of the Highlands to Icelan-
dic GDP might be close to 80 billion.
Others, however, have questioned
the whole premise of assigning any kind
of price tag to untouched wilderness. In
response to the idea that the Highlands
are worth 80 billion ISK, Andri Snær
Magnason, a best-selling author and
environmental activist, wrote on his
Facebook page: “Tell me how much your
grandmother costs per pound, the square
meter of your sweetheart and then calcu-
late the value of your best friend in cars.
Before you do that I don’t know what cur-
rency to use.’”
Words by
Magnús Sveinn Helgason
Can We Place
A Price Tag On
The Central
Highlands?
The installation was built to highlight the
immigration issues in Iceland, a relatively
new occurrence in the country, and also
to bring up the debate about Muslim in-
tegration in Europe—specifically in the
Italian city of Venice, a place tied to Islam
through trade throughout the centuries
but still void of a mosque in its historic
centre. The controversy surrounding the
installation, and the intersections of poli-
tics, art and religion, has only increased
the piece’s efficacy.
“The Mosque” as
security threat
“Before the Charlie Hebdo attacks, we
came to Venice and had some discussions
with privately owned churches and they
were quite positive, but after the attacks
all the doors were closed,” said Nína
Magnúsdóttir, Cristoph’s wife and cura-
tor of the installation. “Nobody wanted
to get involved. The Muslim community
in Venice was the opposite. When we
approached them initially they were a
bit suspicious. What do you really want
with us? Why are you approaching us for
this? After the Charlie Hebdo attacks,
they made a decision within their com-
munity that this was a very timely project
and they wanted to participate. They just
went full force and got into this project.”
Venetian officials first wrote to the
Icelandic Pavilion at the festival, dis-
couraging the installation, titled “The
Mosque,” suggesting it would inspire
violence from anti-Islamic extremists, or
Islamic extremists—it was unclear as to
who the perpetrator(s) would be, in this
scenario. This was due to “the current
international situation.” The building lo-
cation itself was also deemed difficult to
monitor. Nína and Cristoph decided to
keep building the installation.
“We anticipated that there would be
some reaction, but this is a lot, to say the
least,” said Nína. “It was integral from the
start to integrate the Muslim communi-
ties in Iceland and Venice and totally nec-
essary for the project to be able to happen.
It was very difficult to locate the space for
the project. It had to be a space of worship
to overlay the history and culture and re-
ligion in a public space or a church. The
Muslim elements had to visually speak to
us—finding this place was very hard.”
“The Mosque” as
consecrated ground
The building, Santa Maria della Miseri-
cordia, has been unused and privately
owned since 1973. The Venetian diocese
made claims that the church wasn’t of-
ficially deconsecrated and authorization
would be required for anything other
than “Christian worship.”
“The Catholic church trying to claim
the building is still a religious space is all
bullshit,” said Nína. “It’s not. We had to
locate this document, which was quite
hard. Here in Italy, when we tried to find
the documents in the archive, the archive
was on the move, so we couldn’t access
the archive. We had some good friends
help us.”
The document decrees the church,
Santa Maria della Misericordia, decon-
secrated. This document was signed by
Albino Luciana, who later became Pope
John Paul I, known as Il Papa del Sorriso,
The Smiling Pope. He died only 33 days
after his election at a time of political and
religious unrest in Italy. According to
The Guardian, on the night of his death
he was lamenting the shooting of young
men reading outside a Communist Party
headquarters by neo-Fascists. “Even the
young are killing each other,” he said.
“The Mosque” as
over-attended
The strangest claim by Venetian officials
is that the mosque was being attended
by too many people at a time, exceeding
legal limits. The Icelandic Arts Centre,
the organization presenting the national
pavilion, responded in a press release
that “occupancy of the Pavilion has been
tracked consistently by staff and has, af-
ter the opening day, never gone above 100
people at one time.”
“We’ve had counters at the door
the entire time,” said Björg Stefánsdot-
tír, director of The Icelandic Arts Cen-
ter. “When the police came to do these
checks, they had never given us a ticket.
Our guard had been called to the police
station for an interrogation, and when he
asked for proof that he’d been interrogat-
ed the police told him they didn’t need to
give him anything.”
“The Mosque” as a
place of worship
When the mosque was finally shut down,
the objection was that the installation
was not art, but a place of worship. The
Venetian officials are requiring the Ice-
landic Arts Center to reapply to use the
building as a place of worship.
“This is a mosque, but it’s not a
mosque,” said Björg. “It looks real and is
‘real,’ but it’s not real. It’s art. When the
exhibition is finished it will be taken
down and the installation will be over.”
People attending the mosque were
never required to take off their shoes or,
in the case of women, wear veils. These
things were suggested and veils were
available, but it was not enforced.
“It’s also very much an educational
space. The Muslim community and other
associations engaged in a dialogue,” said
Nína. “Within the Muslim community in
Venice, there are 29 nations. Mohamed
Amin Al Ahdab, president of the Islamic
Community of Venice, suggested that
each nation could per-
form and present their
culture.”
At the opening cer-
emonies, according to
the New York Times,
“Pakistan’s ambas-
sador to Italy, publicly
thanked Mr. Büchel
and the project’s cura-
tor, Nina Magnúsdóttir,
for ‘a place of worship,
a place of art, a place
where communities
can come together and
talk.’”
Iceland’s Muslim community has
been behind the installation from the
beginning, with the President of the
Muslim community in Iceland, Salman
Tamimi, giving guided tours throughout
the installation in Venice.
“We wanted language courses with
Arabic teachings and, hopefully, Icelan-
dic—if there was an interest for it,” said
Nína. “Mosques, within Muslim commu-
nities, are called Islamic Cultural Cen-
tres. There is a lot more than just prayer
practised within these institutions. There
is a lot of teaching and lectures going on.
We hoped to have inter-faith discussions
as well.”
The installation ran for weeks with-
out any incident, but unless it gets rein-
stated none of these plans for language
instruction, inter-faith dialogue, or gen-
eral education will be possible.
But does this
represent Iceland?
“Christoph is Swiss,” said Björg. “He lives
in Iceland. His wife is Icelandic. His son is
Icelandic. He’s been here for the last eight
years.” He was commissioned by the Ice-
landic Arts Centre to represent Iceland in
Venice. The small Muslim community in
Iceland—the Muslim Community Centre
counts 389 members—has had issues get-
ting a mosque of their own.
“There is a very small Muslim com-
munity in Iceland,” said Nína. “After 12
years of fighting, it has finally gotten
permission to build a mosque. Coming
to Venice, with all its history to the East,
with all its connections to the Ottoman
Empire, and visually you see traces of the
East all over in the architecture as well,
there has never been a mosque in Ven-
ice. That was the starting point for this
piece.”
In Iceland, a mosque was approved
to be built and granted a plot of land by
the City of Reykjavík. Running for City
Council in the latest elections, Progres-
sive Party member Sveinbjörg Birna
S vei nbjör s dót t i r
claimed she would
reverse the city’s de-
cision to give a plot of
land to the Muslim
community. This led
to the Progressive
Party winning two
seats on City Coun-
cil. After the elec-
tion she decided she
would not oppose
the construction
of the mosque, and
anyone who voted
for her because of
that had “bet on the wrong horse.”
In Venice, strong opposition to Cris-
toph’s installation “The Mosque” came
from Venetian mayoral candidate Luigi
Brugnaro. He described the installation
as a “mistaken initiative, which was done
without taking into account people’s feel-
ings in Venice.”
“Basically, we’re just dealing with
censorship,” said Björg. “There are so
many things that have been affecting
this. The municipality of Venice has been
run without a mayor for the last year. Our
permission might depend on who is voted
in two weeks from now. The more right
wing candidate, Luigi Brugnaro, got 38%
of the vote on June 1, with the more liber-
al candidate, Felice Casson, getting 28%.
It wasn’t a majority, so there will be an-
other election in two weeks. Casson is the
candidate who supported 'The Mosque'
by saying praying in public spaces is com-
pletely legal and you can pray in any faith
right in St. Mark’s Square—anywhere in
public space.”
A surface comparison of the two
situations appears to complement, if not
verify, the motivation behind Christoph’s
“The Mosque” installation. The artist set
out to highlight hypocrisy and intoler-
ance in Iceland, only to cause the same
in Venice. A municipal election and right-
wing candidate piggybacked on local in-
securities about Islam for political gain.
As an art installation “The Mosque” has
achieved something: Life imitating art.
On Friday May 22, Venetian police closed Iceland’s con-
tribution to the Venice Biennale, a functioning mosque
installed in a deconsecrated church in the heart of Venice.
The issues surrounding the installation have varied from
security risk to religious clashing to building permits and
fire codes. In Iceland, there has even been nationalis-
tic criticism of the ethnic identity of the artist, Cristoph
Büchel: is he Swiss or Icelandic?
Words by York Underwood
Photos by Bjarni Grímsson
Life
Imitating
Art Iceland’s “Mosque” installation in Venice
“We anticipated that
there would be some
reaction, but this is a
lot, to say the least.”