Jökull - 01.01.2020, Page 147

Óendanleikinn framundan
photographic work, Untouched expanse in the open-
ing of the article addresses the importance of observ-
ing and recognizing the significance of minor events
within the larger context of the environment. The
Grímsvötn caldera is in the work observed as a self
contained system which, although remote and harsh to
its visitors, the artist proposes that it mirrors changes
in the world at large. Even though footsteps trodden
in the area vanish and blend into the environment, the
bodily pressure of one person’s foot creates an imprint
which acts as a reflector for sunbeams as ash is moved
from the surface of the ice, making it more susceptible
to exposure and melting. In this way the environment
is continuously altered by human activity despite its
constant appearance as untouched wilderness. Their
two-part work presented and donated to the IGS ca-
bin at Grímsfjall, Líndal and Bragason aimed to und-
erscore the collision of human and geological time
scales which may be discerned through the recogniti-
on of the anniversary of human eyes first laying sight
on the caldera and its emergence from being an idea in
the world (for example in Peter Raben’s 1720 map of
Iceland) to becoming a mapped site. One component
of the work is a set of cake plates which display two
maps of Vatnajökull glacier, on the top side Wadell
and Ygberg’s 1919 expedition path is dotted (the first
recorded West-East crossing of the glacier). The und-
erside of the plate reveals a recent map of Vatnajökull
and the many, though not finite, survey lines establis-
hed there in recent years and decades. Before the 22
participants in the trip to Grímsvötn drove together
from the IGS cabin to the edge of the caldera, to stand
in what is believed to be the spot where Wadell and
Ygberg put down their tent a century ago, cake with
a sugar printed map of the 1919 journey was served
on the plates. The second component of the artistic
gesture made during the 2019 trip was a wish from
the artists to the participants in the trip to walk in si-
lence from where the cars were parked towards the
edge of the caldera. Silence in this context served as a
means for individual critical and poetic reflection, of-
fering participants for a short moment the opportunity
to experience on their own terms the significance of
seeing the caldera unfold in front of them at this
momentous point in the site’s history.
144 JÖKULL No. 70, 2020