Iceland review - 2014, Qupperneq 64

62 ICELAND REVIEW
to Stöðvarfjörður to raise a family, she
understood why rósa came back. After sev-
eral years in reykjavík, Sweden and Austria
(ríkharður’s country of birth, he has lived
in iceland since 1960), Sólrún returned to
Stöðvarfjörður, where she and ríkharður
settled in 1985. “We thought it would be
good for the kids to grow up in the coun-
tryside,” Sólrún explains.
They opened Gallery Snærós—where
artwork from the whole family can now be
found—in 1988, a time when there weren’t
any other artists living in town. “There also
weren’t really any galleries in the country-
side, so people were really surprised to see
one in a place like this,” Sólrún smiles.
tAking Art to tHe streets
despite a history of art in the village,
Stöðvarfjörður is only just making it onto
the map now, rósa says. The village had
also previously been exposed to art in the
80s when house painter and hobby art-
ist Geir pálsson brought street art to the
walls of the village’s buildings. “He started
by painting the outside walls of one house
and then people started asking him if he
could decorate theirs too,” rósa explains,
adding that the center hopes to make art
more accessible. “people from small towns
are sometimes a bit afraid to go to—or not
interested in—exhibitions,” she says. “it’s
healthy for young people to grow up with
art around them. When we painted the fish
on the side of the factory everyone in town
watched it develop over the three days. it
sparked discussion about art. i think that’s
really healthy.”
While Sólrún says life in Stöðvarfjörður
is good, she admits that sometimes they
need a break. “it’s possible [to live here]
because we have always had the opportu-
nity to travel, to go abroad. We’re going
to Berlin next week to stay with friends. if
we didn’t have that opportunity, it would
probably be very difficult,” she says frankly.
unfortunately, little has been done to
create jobs in the region, Sólrún says.
“Some people found work in the aluminum
smelter in reyðarfjörður [45 kilometers
away] but that was supposed to be the
answer to everything here,” she says. Some
still work in the fishing industry, but not all
the boats at the harbor are owned by locals.
As Stöðvarfjörður is a lot shorter than
the surrounding fjords fishermen prefer to
dock here, allowing them to save time sail-
ing out to sea; like the fishermen we meet
on a Sunday afternoon, unloading two tons
of fish off the boat onto the waiting truck
headed for the fish market in Grindavík,
Southwest iceland. They work quickly,
emptying the crates of fish, cleaning up
and then heading home to the surrounding
towns for a few hours’ rest before returning
at midnight for another shift.
BuiLding PotentiAL
rósa and Zdenek inevitably had to find
work too when they moved to town. They
started out with their artwork and later the
idea for the factory renovation developed.
“it just seemed obvious to us. We were
staring at this huge empty building every
day thinking about what could be done
with it. When we heard they were thinking
about demolishing it, we immediately knew
we would not let that happen!” says rósa.
The hope is to create 10 to 15 positions by
communitY
from rósa’s collection of hand-crafted ceramic icelandic birds.