Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Síða 46

Art An Equal Difference
Gabrielle Motola makes eye con-
tact. When she speaks, she speaks
directly to you. And when she lis-
tens, she invests herself in what
you are saying. If there were such
thing as “ear contact,” I’m sure that
Gaby is making it. Her eyes water
a little bit when she gets conversa-
tional momentum. Maybe it’s the
beer, maybe it’s passion.
This acute attentiveness, com-
bined with a photographer’s eye
and a writer’s quick lips brought
Gaby to Iceland to publish her
first book, ‘An Equal Difference’.
It began with the financial crash.
Gaby was in London and heard
the international media describe
the Iceland’s clean-up process as
a push to “feminise the banking
system.” What did this mean? she
wondered. And, more profoundly,
what is the mindset that prompts
this kind of thinking?
From doubt to do
She flew to Iceland with little more
than her camera and this question,
looking for the forward thinkers
and the liberated minds. She came
to look, photograph, and listen.
She collected and recorded her
interactions with everyone from
the former President of Iceland to
young up-and-coming musicians.
After a couple of years of kicking
these conversations around with
friends in London, New York, Los
Angeles, Spain, Reykjavík, and so
forth, she decided that she had a
cohesive message to share. A book.
“The publishers I was pitching
to heard ‘equality’ and would direct
me to ‘feminist’ publishers or com-
panies with ‘women’s interests,’”
Gaby says. “Equality is not about
women. It’s about human beings.
It’s about a balance in the mind.”
Eventually Gaby decided to self-
publish the book. “I knew that if
that’s how they interpreted the
book, then they were not the ones
to publish it,” she says. The deci-
sion echoes a conversation Gaby
writes about with Vigdís Finnbo-
gadóttir, the world’s first demo-
cratically elected female president.
“[Vigdís] told me that our mistrust
of ourselves is the great handicap
of women in the world… you have
to have to ask yourself constantly,
why do I doubt myself? Do I doubt
this person? No, I don’t doubt this
person. Why do I doubt myself?”
‘An Equal Difference’ was com-
pleted and released in September
through Gaby’s own company,
Restless Machinery. The book
traverses the Icelandic mindset—
from family values with Birgir, an
advocate for fathers’ rights, to the
treatment of prisoners with Mar-
grét, the former warden at Iceland’s
largest prison in Eyrarbakki. Gaby
uses the framework of equality to
investigate Icelandic educational
structures, virtual reality, music,
science, pool culture, power, pun-
ishment. The book is far-reaching
and the topic broad, but the con-
versations are intimate, and the
people local. In this way it reflects
the current Icelandic identity: ex-
panding, and yet loyal to its roots.
Making contact
In the back of the book is a constel-
lation-like map of the connections
that Gaby made over the course
of the book. The spindly webs of
interconnectedness give a visual
dimension to Gaby’s attitude to-
ward travel in general. “I am not
transient,” she says, digging into
every corner of each word. “I try to
keep it in mind when I am in New
York, Los Angeles, London…” Gaby
continues, and repeats: “I am not
transient.”
‘An Equal Difference’ allows
space for its readers to think, and
suggests that you examine your
own thoughts along the way. It
dances between passive and con-
frontational. It makes you self-
aware, but gives you something to
look at all the while. Kind of like
really strong eye contact.
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46The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2016
The
View
From
The
Ground
What equality looks like
to Gabrielle Motola
Words PARKER YAMASAKI Photo ART BICNICK
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