Iceland review - 2015, Side 65

ICELAND REVIEW 63
three other visiting artists not officially part
of Skammdegi, that makes 14 artists from
nine countries. Many heard about the pro-
gram via ResArtis, an international network
of artist residencies.
An unfamiliar environment with virtu-
ally no distractions, the residency provides
new inspirations and an opportunity to
escape the everyday and sometimes-mun-
dane demands of life and work back home,
as Sinéad expresses. “We have studios in
Dublin too so if we had wanted to lock
ourselves away we could have done that
back home. We’re more here to absorb, be
a sponge.”
Listhús manager Alice Liu Shok Han is
waiting outside when I arrive. She’s keen
to show me around. She’s also expecting
the arrival of a journalist from national
broadcaster RÚV’s evening news. Inside,
Australian multi-media artist Caitlin Jade
Ramsden-Smith and U.S.-based photojour-
nalist Annie Ling are chatting on the sofa;
one of the two studios near the entrance
has been converted into an exhibition space
for Australian mixed-media artist Brenton
Alexander Smith’s video work of a local
fish factory machine working in an endless
loop. Some of the other artists’ work is on
display in the larger exhibition space in the
hallway: a timeline of Skammdegi in daily
Polaroids by Annie, Anton Benois’ ‘herring
shrines’ made of driftwood and other mate-
rials collected from the local beach and self
portraits by Caitlin. At the other end of
the building, Sinéad and Joe are in a third
studio, and in the adjoining apartment Beth
Dillon and Anton, Berlin-based visual art-
ists from Australia, are busy in the kitchen.
In celebration of the first sunrays reap-
pearing over Ólafsfjörður’s mountains the
day of our visit, the artists are putting on a
community dinner of yellow foods. During
their stint in Ólafsfjörður, Beth and Anton,
who summed up their residency project
‘Two Yellow Bellies’ as “60 days in far
north Iceland. 60 days of dark winter. 60
days without seeing the sun,” underwent
what they describe as “self-administered
sun replacement therapy” by dining “exclu-
sively on meals that fall within the yellow
spectrum” and photographing the results.
Couscous salad with yellow bell peppers,
turmeric-spiced rice with boiled egg, yellow
split pea and potato soup, hummus, carrot
dip, corn salsa with turmeric baguette and
mango coconut desert rice are among the
array of dishes at the feast.
“It can be really difficult when you don’t
see the sun but our project helped us men-
tally. It was part of our daily routine, so
just coming up with a meal idea and then
ART
Opposite page:
Sunset, taken from nearby Hrísey island
(3:41 pm, January 20);
Right: Artists Beth Dillon and Anton Benois’
banquet of yellow foods to celebrate
the return of the sun;
Below: Crosses lit for the Christmas
season in nearby Siglufjörður’s new cemetery
(12:57 pm, January 2).
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