Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.03.2018, Blaðsíða 21

21The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04 — 2018
On social evils
Guðfinna often talks about the neces-
sity of working and staying busy, but
never in a negative tone. She enjoys
what she does, and it’s that twinkle in
her eyes that betrays the passion and
excitement she feels while talking about
working and going back to university.
Her talent has been rewarded with an
abundance of projects, and she rejoices
at the trust people put in her. But as

time goes by she is less inclined to see
her endless drive as something praise-
worthy.
“Icelanders are suckers for people
who are hard-working and it’s prob-
lematic. That’s the ultimate compli-
ment here, you know?” she explains.
“But I’ve often had this dilemma where
I know I’ve overworked myself and so I
tried to edit more what I was doing and
have days off but that's tricky." After a
series of traumas that drained her out,
Guðfinna experienced a system break-
down. "It was surreal to feel defeated."
After managing projects, study-
ing and having a child, as well as
experiencing a series of breakdowns,
Guðfinna realised she couldn’t go on
pretending she was made of steel. But
the issue of how to defeat social pres-
sure still stands. “I am used to being
hard-working and handing everything
in on time—and to admit that you can’t
do that for some time is really hard.
You can feel defeated,” she explains.
“This is a real issue in Iceland because
it’s such a big part of our culture—the
praise of being hard-working. But it’s a
true social evil. When you’re working
independently, projects come in and
you can’t really control them—but at
the same time, it’s so expensive to live
here that you have to work constantly.
You have to take the projects to survive,
so how do you last in this field? This
can’t happen so often that people crash
completely.”
Finding
purpose
Right now, Guðfinna is working on
healing and doing things she loves, but
she knows this is a privilege. Others
are not so lucky. In a world that has
suddenly begun to move at a faster
pace, Guðfinna has been blessed with
the knowledge that designers must
find ways to survive through collabora-
tion, community, and mutual support.
Although the job can be isolating,
designers don’t live in a vacuum—on
the contrary, their place is within soci-
ety, and their purpose can be to help
their community grow from all angles.
Guðfinna is doing just that.
Although she began her career by
designing wool pieces for her fashion
label, she lent her skills to the widest
variety of projects during the past 15
years. She went from creating an exhi-
bition of children books to designing
indoor spaces; from designing food
products and shops to finding ways
to protect the environment. In addi-
tion, she is managing to juggle being
a teacher at the Iceland Academy of
Arts and studying for a new university
degree in landscape architecture.
“The key is to look at the purpose
of design in a way that changes all the
time,” Guðfinna says. “I think it can
be completely different each time I
work so that the purpose of me being a
designer is one today but it was another
one some years ago, and something
different in the future.”
Fighting
for
the
environment

Purpose and passion are indeed what
drives Guðfinna’s work. Fifteen years
ago, when she began working on Vík
Prjónsdóttir with four other design-
ers, the idea was to take wool—which
had been out of fashion for years—and
make it relevant again. As they felt
that the Icelandic wool had poten-
tial, they created opportunities for it
to be valued.
Later, she worked with Brynhildur
Pálsdóttir on exploiting the poten-
tial of Icelandic clay. When she felt
the need to show the importance of
design in food production, she went
on to work with local farms to create
food products and, in the case of her
latest project with Erpsstaðir, even
an entire store that plans to sell Skyr
ice cold and straight from a machine,
like fro-yo. Now,
however, her heart
and sense of purpose
lie in the environ-
ment, whether it’s
landscape planning
or the pressing issue
of plastic pollution.
“I would really
like to see Icelandic
food producers make
a bold environmental
move when it comes
to their packaging.
Microplastic has
polluted all oceans
and in many coun-
tries, it’s already in
the drinking water,”
Guðfinna explains. “Thankfully there
are a lot of creative people already
working on this, but a great responsi-
bility lies with producers and design-
ers, who have to find ways to stop
using virgin plastic in their production
in favour of biodegradable materials.”
Guðfinna is aware that she can’t
change things on her own, but as a
designer, she is conscious of what kind
of materials she should and shouldn’t
use in her products, so that plastic
fibres aren’t flushed into the oceans
directly from our washing machines.
Governments and politicians,
however, play the most important role
in the fight for the environment. In a
country that is slowly moving away
from its pledge to respect the Paris
Agreement, too little is being done
to lighten the impact Iceland has on
the environment. Compared to other
European countries, Icelandic munici-
palities are behind even when it comes
to recycling. Guðfinna, however, is one
step ahead. “Today it’s all about the
circular economy where the creation
of waste is being avoided altogether
and the resources are being kept in use
for as long as possible,” she adds. “It’s
really challenging but a linear econ-
omy—as in make, use, dispose—is just
not acceptable anymore.”
Swapping roles and
finding inspiration
Expanding her range of vision when
it comes to design has also helped
her along her adventure as a teacher.
Guðfinna has worked both for her alma
mater, the Iceland Academy of Arts, and
for the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts,
but despite her invaluable experience
as a designer, her position as a teacher
doesn’t pressure Guðfinna into being
a mentor. Instead, she exercises her
influence discreetly when it comes to
environmental matters, looking at her
relationships with current and former
students as exciting collaborations.
“It’s a privilege to get to know them
all and see what they’re thinking
about,” she explains. “Through teach-
ing, I’ve gotten to know so many people
who are doing great things and who
really inspires me, like the students in
textile design in the School of Visual
Arts. They are now working with wool,
sketching straight into the materials
and collaborating with the knitting
factory and the design store Epal for
Design March.”
Guðfinna admits that swapping
roles and being both a student and a
teacher on the same day can be daunt-
ing and chaotic, but she loves it none-
theless. She’s one of those people for
whom the creative dialogue is a source
of energy and inspiration, and while
she likes her work as an independent
professional, she cherishes all her
collaborations even more. Even so,
bursting out of the design bubble in
Reykjavík and focusing on her studies
in Hvanneyri felt like a breath of fresh
air. “Of course, part of going into these
studies was to have more possibilities
work-wise, but then it also felt refresh-
ing to be in a different crowd,” she
admits with a laugh.
A healing garden
for the future
It’s clear that the environment has a
special place in Guðfinna’s heart, and
it’s no wonder that her initial plan to
go back to university for just a semes-
ter ended up stretching to an entire
Bachelor of Science. “I wanted to add
something different to my product
design degree, so I decided to open up
the scale,” she explains. “Dealing with
product design, you’re often working
on a domestic scale, but here you’re
working in public spaces, outdoors. I’m
really interested in designing a public
space that people can just use —where
they don’t have to buy an entrance or
buy a product. This area has a lot of
potential and there are so many possi-
bilities that we haven’t explored, both
in Reykjavík and in the countryside.”
As of late, Guðfinna has been lend-
ing her landscape knowledge to the
municipality by organising the Forest
Games in Heiðmörk, just outside of
town—a project she is really excited
about. However, she has a more ambi-
tious baby climbing out the cradle.
As part of her graduation project,
Guðfinna is designing a healing garden
for the National Hospital Landspíta-
linn as a safe haven from the pain
and sorrow that can often permeate
the pristine halls of the institution.
Although Guðfinna hasn’t got much
time to work on this project, she hopes
to walk the paths of the garden in
person in the near future.
“I have been spending quite a lot of
time at the hospital for the past three
years for various reasons so I’ve done
some field work,” she explains, smil-
ing. “I really believe that this idea could
make a difference for patients, fami-
lies, and even the staff.”
No
designer
is an island
It’s this kind of mindset that sets
forward-thinking designers like
Guðfinna apart from the rest. With her
down-to-earth attitude and a curious
soul driven by a desire to experiment
and create, Guðfinna unconsciously
plays an important role in the future
of design—both as a role model for
young students and as a designer of
the future. By opening up to possi-
bilities and branching out to different
creative fields, she reclaims design
as a necessary driving force within
the local territory. It’s up to Icelan-
dic professionals like her to lead the
way when it comes to revolutionis-
ing the cultural perception of local
design, and securing its place within
the community.
As I walk with her through the
wool factory where her iconic scarves
and pelts are produced, I look at her
interacting with respect and admira-
tion with the factory workers. Finally, I
understand what she meant when she
talked about the value of her work rela-
tionships and creative collaborations.
“As a designer that’s what I love:
you’re good in some things, but when
you are collaborating with other
experts you learn so much from them.
This dialogue is so important for the
design process,” Guðfinna finishes.
“Most of my work needs this dialogue.
It’s the key to the process, and to be
able to be in that dialogue with so
many professions, that’s really what
gives me such huge inspiration.”
“The key is to look at the purpose
of design in a way that changes
all the time.”
“I would really like to see Icelandic
food producers make a bold envi-
ronmental move when it comes to
their packaging.”
Vik Prjónsdóttir's
"Verndarvængir" blanket
Skyrkonfekt, using the unique
Icelandic yoghurt for confectionary