Iceland review - 2016, Blaðsíða 64

62 ICELAND REVIEW
THE WORLD IS ONE STAGE
Halla’s recent work has not been confined
to just sculpting, painting and addressing
conservation issues. A sculptor who cre-
ated the famous life-size sculpture of poet
Tómas Guðmundsson by Tjörnin, she is
also an accomplished stage designer who
has worked for Reykjavík City Theater
and the Akureyri Theater Company,
designing sets for plays like The Cherry
Orchard and Shockheaded Peter, which
won an Icelandic Theater Award for pro-
duction design in 2011. “I started work-
ing for the theater almost by accident,”
she explains. “A friend of mine, who is a
theater director, asked me if I wanted to
design for him. We had done some work
together in high school. So I did and
have done stage designs and costumes on
and off for the past ten years or so. It’s
very creative work and especially enjoya-
ble when you work with a strong creative
team and a director who trusts you.”
She also designed the set for this year’s
production of Let the Right One In at
The Icelandic National Theater, and has
been nominated for yet another Icelandic
Theater Award in production design.
“The theater is all about telling a good
story and the fun part is that nothing is
set in stone and you can take that story
and visually interpret it as you wish,” she
describes. “I read the play and start see-
ing it in my mind and I usually go with
my first instinct.”
Her passion for visual art, environ-
mental issues and designing for the
theater is matched only by her love for
travel. Although she has participated in
numerous artist residencies in places like
Norway, New York, Mexico, Russia, Italy
and Jordan, Halla is already plotting fur-
ther adventures abroad which she hopes
will inspire new projects and lead to new
perspectives: “Travel inspires me to learn
and do things that otherwise I wouldn’t
do and all of that feeds into my work,”
she explains. “I can’t imagine not seeing
the Amazon and not experiencing sitting
with mountain gorillas in Virunga, or
diving with whale sharks and traveling
around Kenya to see lions, rhinos and
African elephants in their natural habi-
tat—all things I’m planning to do in the
near future.” *

ART
“In the work, I
want to show that
what separates us
from animals is very
little. They are
living beings with
souls; they have
families; they have
feelings and they
have language.”