Atlantica - 01.11.2002, Qupperneq 45

A T L A N T I C A 43
Not so long ago it seemed that every Icelander had spent at least one summer
working in the local fish factory – a right of passage for Icelandic youth.
While today’s teenagers spurn the fish factories for work in cafes, record shops and
restaurants, the legacy of fish remains.
Take the recent collaboration by designers Dögg Gudmundsdóttir and Fanney
Antonsdóttir. The two artists combined dried cod skins, metal mesh, black sand,
swan feathers and halogen lights to create ‘The Bird that Flew Away and Left Time
Behind’, which received rave reviews during ‘Life Space’, a group exhibition held
at the Danish Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen.
So how did their idea come about?
“I come from a fishing village in the north of Iceland where the first job you get is
to hang fish to dry,” says Fanney, who studied at the Icelandic Art Academy and
the Danish Design School. “We were thinking of an Icelandic material to work with
and it just grew from there.”
And grow it did. Critics were so impressed with their installation that they’ve been
invited to the Saint-Etienne International Design Biennale. The exhibition will also
travel to Stockholm and Iceland.
But not everyone was happy with the 14 large cod skins that were transformed into
fish lights and hung out like fish in the wood drying racks that dot the outskirts of
Icelandic fishing villages. Since Fanney and Dögg, who also studied at the Danish
Design School, gutted the fish and dried it in their studio for about a month, the
smell was a little too much for the other artists sharing studio space.
“We had no problem with it, but we weren’t very popular during the month it took
to dry,” Fanney laughs. EW
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[ IDEAS OF INTEREST IN ICELAND ]
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FISH LIGHTS
047-058 I-siteAtl502 20.10.2002 11:34 Page 43