Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2007, Síða 14

14_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 05_007_INTERVIEW/CULTURE
Last January, Swede Max Dager took over
from Norwegian Gro Kraft as the director of
the Nordic House in Reykjavík. Since taking
over, Dager has left no stone unturned in
his quest to restore the house to its former
glory.
Dager is a big man who speaks with a lot of
conviction. That is because this big man has
many big ideas. When asked to summarise
his new vision for the Nordic House in one
thought, he says his work is based on two
keywords, “vitality and relevance.” During
our conversation, which lasts over an hour
and a half, he explains one idea after another
for his new vision of the Nordic House. It can
be hard to keep up with him at times, as one
idea leads to another, and sometimes, ideas
are left unexplained when a new idea seems
to be born and take over even in mid-sen-
tence. He speaks with such passion that it is
easy to imagine the Nordic House being one
of the leading cultural centres in the Nordic
countries, if not all of Europe, in four years
time.
The Nordic House in Reykjavík, designed
by the distinguished Finnish architect Alvar
Aalto, opened in 1968. It is a Nordic cultural
centre whose main goal is to serve as a link
between Iceland and the other Nordic coun-
tries and to that end, organises an extensive
programme of cultural events and exhibitions
besides maintaining a library with a collec-
tion of some 30,000 Nordic books.
“The system here is that as a new director
of the Nordic House, you are hired for four
years at first, and if you do good, your con-
tract can be extended for another four years.
Every director before me has been working
for the Nordic Council before and they have
known all about the Nordic Cooperation. I
come from a very different direction. I started
a company in Sweden called Cirkus Cirkör,
which expanded from being run from a ping-
pong table to employing 500 people and
having a professor in contemporary circus
and branches in South-Africa and other plac-
es,” Dager explains when I ask him about his
background.
Cirkus Cirkör is a remarkable success story.
Since its inception in 1995, it has become one
of the world’s leading contemporary circuses,
running a circus school that is considered one
of the best in the world and attended by over
30,000 children each year. I comment on it be-
ing an interesting change, going from being a
circus director, to being a director of an official
institution like the Nordic House. Dager replies
that naturally, it is somewhat different, but as
a circus director, you always need to juggle ten
balls in the air at the same time, which can be
an asset in this position. He also claims to have
“a lot of crazy ideas,” which he also considers
an asset.
“I have been working on big projects
most of my life. I’ve organised big festivals
for the Japanese Ministry for Culture, in Viet-
nam and South-America, all over the place,
the World Exhibition in Nagoya, Japan. This
is something I know, although you never re-
ally know anything in this line of work, there
are always new problems that need to be
solved.”
New Vision
Dager is no stranger to Iceland. In fact, his
wife is Icelandic, and he has been visiting the
country regularly ever since the early 80’s.
“When I first came to the Nordic House in
the 80s, it was a meeting place for artists and
scholars,” Dager says. In the last years, atten-
dance has dropped and apart from students
at the nearby university, not a lot of people
visit the Nordic House. “In the 70s, when the
house first opened, there were two or three
cafeterias in Reykjavík. Now there must be
between 80 and 100 cafés in Reykjavík, so
maybe it is not so strange that the atten-
dance has gone down,” Dager explains. “But
it is time to put it up there again.”
In order to boost attendance, Dager is
planning to make changes in how the house
is operated. He has brought in the Reykja-
vík Film Festival, which is now run from the
house, and Dager plans to import the first
high definition digital theatre in Iceland to
the Nordic house, where he plans to screen
European films, Nordic films in particular, art
films, and documentaries to offset the Hol-
lywood productions flooding the Reykjavík
cinemas. The technique also makes it avail-
able to stream content directly, allowing him
to bring in lecturers from other parts of the
world to address audiences gathered in Reyk-
javík.
Another change Dager is implement-
ing is in the cafeteria, where a new menu,
promoting New Nordic Cuisine will be intro-
duced this summer. “The focus will be on
Nordic ingredients. We will not serve pizza
or olives, but rather Icelandic lamb with Ice-
landic herbs, and goat cheese from Jamtland
in Sweden, or cowberries from Finland,” he
explains. He is also bringing in Finnish interior
designer Ilkka Supponen to design a lounge
room where it will be possible to hold meet-
ings and small gatherings while enjoying the
nouveau-Nordic cuisine.
But when our talk turns to the cultural
role of the Nordic House, it becomes more
clear what sort of changes Dager is planning
for: “You should not come to the Nordic
House to look at paintings or listen to poetry.
I am not going to have exhibitions like the
ones that have been here. That is the role of
the National Gallery and the Reykjavík Mu-
seum of Art. They have the space to do this.
I intend to have another kind of discourse
on culture through lectures and workshops.
In the basement (the main exhibition room)
there will be creative workshops, jazz eve-
nings, and I am in negotiations with the Gay
Pride festival to do something here.”
The Disneyland Effect
The operation of the house is financed with
contributions from the Nordic Council, but
to accommodate his ambitious plan, Dager
will be seeking added outside support. “I
get money from the council in Copenhagen
every year. It is a similar amount each time,
but I have a goal to make external financing
nearly 50% within one year, so I can double
the money. I think when people realise the
possibilities that are here; the opportunity for
more money will be here. It is like an old train,
it takes time building up speed, but once you
get it going, it is hard to stop.”
It will be particularly important for the
operation to receive additional funds, since
plans have been made to change the house
extensively to make better use of it. “I con-
tacted the Alvar Aalto Academy, and the
project is being carried out in cooperation
with the Academy. I believe if Aalto were
alive today, he would realise the importance
of adapting the house to its modern needs.
“I call it the Disneyland effect. It should be
so that when you visit Reykjavík, you need
have your photo taken standing outside the
Nordic House,” Dager explains.
With all his ambitious ideas, I wonder
how Dager manages to get the board of an
institution that has been run in a conserva-
tive manner for nearly 40 years to support
his ideas. “When I attended the first board
meeting and presented my ideas, I expected
people to be skeptical, but they just said, “go
for it.” Now we will have to see how it goes.
Maybe it will be an absolute catastrophe.”
Vitality and Relevance
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Skari
When asked to sum-
marise his new vision
for the Nordic House in
one thought, he says his
work is based on two
keywords, “vitality and
relevance.”