Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.05.2017, Page 24

to try something else.”
At home, she spoke Icelandic, and at
school, French, German, English and
Luxembourgish, meaning Elín has felt
forever between languages. Both of
her parents were self-employed—her
father a violin maker, and her mother
a creative writing graduate—so Elín
also grew used to the idea of work-
ing independently. “They controlled
their own time,” she says. “I got used
to that way of life, with money coming
in unevenly. It was very handy for an
artist—you’d never go into the field,
otherwise. But I didn’t know anything
else.”
Elín also spent a lot of time picking
things up in her father’s violin work-
shop. “It was in a big castle from the
Middle Ages,” she smiles. “A beauti-
ful, romantic setting surrounded by
woods with huge trees. My dad taught
me to use machinery from an early
age. His philosophy was that if you
teach a kid to use a bandsaw when
they’re six, they’ll understand the se-
riousness and danger of it. I’m certain
this is one of the reasons that I wasn’t
afraid of building large things when I
started out.”
Having planned to stay there for
just a couple of years, it was twelve
before the family returned to Iceland.
“I think my parents were worried I’d
become a Luxembourger,” Elín laughs.
They moved into a place on Ingólf-
stræti. As luck would have it, a new
gallery was opening on the square.
“It was the i8 gallery,” says Elín.
“We got to know Edda Jónsdóttir, the
lady running it. We were there every
day. I had an interest in art, and start-
ed working there
on weekends. I was
paid in artwork, and
I could read all the
magazines, and look
at the books. From
there, studying art
happened naturally.”
MORE CRITICAL
Elín applied for the
foundation course at Iceland’s Acad-
emy of Arts. The course was undergo-
ing a rethink at the time, and didn’t re-
quire students to specialise in a single
discipline. It was perfect for Elín, who
was already curious and exploratory in
nature. “I’ve never chosen a medium,”
she says. “It just depends on my inter-
ests at the time. Which also makes me
an amateur in many things, rather
than a specialist in one.”
“There were some frustrations,”
she smiles, “but I was twenty, so being
frustrated is normal. I realised after a
couple of years that I was craving more
critical thinking. And I got that in Ber-
lin.”
The MA course at KHB Weissensee
in Berlin was a stark contrast with the
open nature of art education in Reyk-
javík. “What I admire in Iceland is this
‘get up and go, no fear, just do and see
what happens’ energy,” says Elín. “But
there’s also a lack of critical thinking.
In Germany it was very different: my
fellow students on the MA had been
studying for five years and maybe
never had an exhibition. They were
waiting for their ideas to become rock
solid. It was good to find balance, and
have access to both worlds.”
WHITE TUNNEL
As she approached the final year of
her studies in 2005, Elín was commis-
sioned by Reykjavík Arts Festival. The
curator was Jessica Morgan from the
Tate Modern, and rather than basing
the event in downtown Reykjavík, she
decided to spread the artists all over
Iceland. Elín’s show would take place
in Ísafjörður in a large 1890s building
called The Edinburgh House. Inside a
corrugated iron exterior the house was
under renovation, resulting in a raw,
cavernous space.
Elín had some cash on hand from
selling an apartment, and decided to
go all-in on the project. “I had the op-
portunity to do something in a huge
space—and I went for it!” she ex-
claims. “I was like: ‘Mum, Dad, I’d like
to spend a million króna on plywood
and screws, do you mind?’ But they
said, ‘Go for it, girl!’ That’s real sup-
port.”
She assembled a group of collabo-
rators, including two architects, a
sound artist and a vocalist, and head-
ed for Ísafjörður. The team stayed in a
tiny rented apartment for six weeks,
through a snowy, stormy spring, shar-
ing a room and working day and night
on Elín’s idea: a 150 metre-long zig-
zagging tunnel environment, with
brightly lit walls.
“We were endlessly walking along
the tunnel,” Elín recalls, “and no mat-
ter how many times we walked this
distance, we never knew where we
were. If you forgot a tool somewhere,
there was no way to remember. The
distance seemed to expand.”
COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT
During its construction, Elín had little
idea what the outcome would be. “It
was an experiment,” she states. “I just
knew what dimensions I wanted, and
the lighting, and to have it as white as
possible. You walked in and reached
the end, expecting to see something
around the corner… but there was
another corner, then another, then
another. You got the feeling of being
snowblind. There were no reference
points, and it became a projection
screen for your own thoughts.”
The results were a surprise even to
the artist. “The piece took on a life of
its own,” says Elín, “and became some-
thing, without me directing it in that
way. That’s very exciting to me—when
you make decisions, one step at a time,
but in the end it becomes something
completely independent.”
One of the difficulties for early ca-
reer artists to create such work is the
sheer logistical challenge. Elín re-
members a different atmosphere in
2005, before the financial collapse.
“The festival opening was so deca-
dent,” she says. “It was an airplane ride
around the island, from Ísafjörður to
Akureyri to Egillstaðir to Vestman-
naeyjar, with the politicians and art-
ists and curators all getting gradually
more drunk. It was fun.”
The success of the piece was a
breakthrough for Elín. “It opened my
eyes to a world where a space can move
you, literally and mentally, without
telling a story,” she says. “After that I
knew anything was possible.”
NEW PATH
Whilst constructing the tunnel, Elín
happened upon another idea. Fin-
ishing work one night, she walked
its length, gradually turning out the
lights, when something unexpected
caught her attention. “I was finishing
up, pulling out the plugs, creating a
darkness as I went,” she says. “I came
24 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2017
“I think art is a social force, not
this hierarchical, market-driven
place. We all own these spaces.
They should be a place we all have
the right to use, to question these
systems that we have put up.”
“A lot of what we experience in daily life,
we expect to happen… it’s interesting
trying to shake up the usual way of
seeing things.”