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Disney Land?

I feel like I have just entered Disney World or Disney Land. As an American my only experience in old cities is Disney World and Disney cartoons. Somehow, despite all of the politics of this place and history, Tallinn, feels like a memory of a wonderful and romantic place.

I just arrived here yesterday afternoon. I have yet to do a lot of exploring, but I have seen most of the old city. It feels like I am in a movie set. I can’t wait to see whats on the outside.

Super Star Boat Trip

Above was the view of the sky from the boat. It was a gorgeous day on the trip from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia.

Thanks to the Estonia Artist’s Association, I have a wonderful apartment and studio for the next 5 days. I will be making the most of my time here. I already have some ideas of photographs I want to make. Disney World is coming to mind.

An image from the park around the old city limits.

Even the trees are out of a Disney movie.

Made it to Sweden

It has been a while since I posted anything. I have been taking Icelandic Class exams, working too much, going to too many family functions, but now I am back and I am in Sweden. I am in Stockholm for 10 days thanks to a Kultural Kontakt Mobility Grant. They sent me here to find new insiration for my work and to check out the art and gallery scene. So far I have almost seen every contemporary art gallery. I am going to check out a few more today.

In Stockholm, they have the opposite problem of Reykjavik in terms of housing. I have learned that they have a housing shortage, and any and all building is a good thing and not some need to satisfy the American Dream where everyone has a large single family luxury house. It has been a struggle for Stockholm to keep up with providing enough housing for everyone. I am still learning about this, so if anyone has any thoughts, send them my way.

I don´t have many photographs yet, but I would like to share this one of a miniature gold course which was built between 2 apartment buildings. Free miniature golf for all residents! Do they list that on the for rent or for sale advertisement?

So, I am here visiting strange neighborhoods and looking at how people live, seeing artists, meeting artists and trying to figure out what will inspire me. I am going to check out some neighborhoods where many immigrants live. I think that should be interesting. Like Breidholt in Iceland, the differences in place could be very sublte. We´ll see.

Send me your thoughts. I would love it.

Review of Show at the Nordic House

See text below the picture of the article. Thank you Richard for a very thoughtful review.

Ipseity – Abeyance
A look through the lenses and into the crisis

March 2009

Words by Richard P. Foley
As part of the Northern Lights Festival, the Nordic House has been hosting the group exhibition “Ipseity- Abeyance”. The exhibition is one of the first artistic ventures to express the crisis. The exhibition’s curator and photographer, Julia Staples, chose to focus on photography, stating that the “illustrative qualities of photography go together well with representing the crisis.” One recurring theme throughout the show is the choice of portraying the real estate industry so as to reflect upon what has occurred from the economic crisis, as real estate is always a strong indicator of the financial situation in any country.

As I walked through the space and browsed the pamphlet provided, I noticed an article espousing photographer Guðmundur Ingólfsson’s feelings about photography. He told of how the art-form had received a lowered status throughout his career and the struggle for employment that photographers encounter.  It became apparent that the choice of photography was possibly the most appropriate for expressing the crisis. For me, the show truly engaged itself in demonstrating aspects of the situation with realism, subtlety and pathos. Hence, I wanted to try to articulate a few of the artist’s works that conveyed these feelings.

Guðmundur Ingólfsson

Upon entering the exhibition, the first artist’s work on view was that of the aforementioned Guðmundur Ingólfsson, a renowned photographer of Iceland. Ingólfsson presented was a contrast of two photographic series. Firstly, was a modern day reflection on the harbour area in Reykjavík, where a lot of ambitious building plans have been undertaken and sadly halted. The photographs depict large industrial cranes in the skyline, said to symbolise the economic landscape of the depression. The work remained bright and optimistic in its summer setting, compared to the second series “Stories From the Last War”. This older set of black and white imagery shows the demolition of old, unused buildings that existed in Reykjavík, such as the Pravda Club bar. Today, all buildings seem to hold question marks over their heads. As the title implies, these are “Stories From the Last War”, but we are already anticipating the next battle.

Nico Muhly

An American composer, who by chance became involved in the exhibition, was invited after his video collaboration with the DVD magazine, Rafskinna. The live performance was composed specifically for the incomplete city Music Hall. Muhly asked Helgi Hrafn Jónsson to perform on the trombone for its acoustical quality in testing a space—even though the roof was still missing, as he points out. The music seemed to produce an unnerving reiteration of the first verse, creating a stuttering tension that constantly began again and again, with short stints of other compositions but never building to a crescendo.  In this way it managed to convey something of the emotions of the building. Nico Muhly’s comment that this “might be the first and only performance” performed in the Music Hall made the moment even more sentimental.

Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson

A side room holds Ingivar Högni Ragnarsson’s photographic installation series “Waiting”. The emptiness of the work appears to be a stern realisation that all has been deserted in pursuit of better days.  The presence of people is suggested throughout each picture but never seen: car tracks in the snow, tyre marks on a vacant road. The curious aspect of the work is the concept of static time, a moment caught in anticipation. “Waiting” evokes the sense that something is about to happen or just has, reflecting the tense atmosphere of the crisis. The images are motionless, in wonder of what is to come: who will fill the empty car parks and occupy houses? What will happen if left un-built and docile? From an aesthetic viewpoint the photographer has captured a sense of the melancholic beauty of the Icelandic landscape, reflected in the dull greys and silence. His symmetrical angles in the work convey a dramatic impression on the viewer’s natural sense of composition, placing the work as one of the more technically ambitious.

Julia Staples

Photographer Julia Staples works directly with the issues imposed on people throughout the crisis. Two intriguing works produced for the exhibition are a smaller series, entitled “Breiðholt, Iceland” and “Looking Through An Unfinished House in Norðlingaholt”.  “Breiðholt, Iceland” depicts the housing blocks of Breidholt – which legend has it is a notoriously deprived part of Reykjavík with a high concentration of immigrants.

What struck me regarding this series were its vibrant colours, instinctively drawing me to view them. Inspecting the images further, I noticed they were small entrance doors to a housing block, placed in numerical order. The systematic order seemed to express ideas of populace statistics and the categorization of people into a number; in this context, it almost appeared like a list of unemployed families receiving benefits in each apartment. I began to wonder what the impact of the crisis would have here. Would the people of Breiðholt be the first to experience the repercussions of the economic change? If most immigrants emigrate home, will these apartments become barren or be over filled because the housing crash? Just how bad could it get? All these questions posed by the work were inevitably unanswerable. “Looking Through An unfinished House in Norðlingaholt” seems to portray more hope. The images were printed so that the frame mimicked the windows of the house. Most of the window views were set onto a picturesque landscape, contrasting the pathos between the tragic financial restrictions preventing a family for living there, and the hope that one day they will enjoy these views when the economic crisis will be over.

On the most part the exhibition was a conflict between anxiety and optimistic aspirations both connecting to the current atmosphere of the crisis, which makes the work a successful re-enactment of what has been felt throughout this historical period.

Malin Stahl performs at the Nordic House

I Always Wanted to Wear White

-Let’s meet for a drink and a smoke, the White Canary analyzes the situation

Nordic House, Friday 27th of February 7-11pm. Performance at 7:30.

Come hear Malin talk about the art at the Nordic House and listen to her give some advice on how to run the government. Malin Stahl is a friend who I met the first time I came to Iceland in 2003. She did her undergraduate art studies at the art school of Reykjavik. She later went to London to do her MFA. Now she does art and performance all over Europe. She will be gracing us with her presence on Friday the 27th at 7:30. Come to the Nordic House to see her in action.

Here is what Malin says about her work:

My practice embraces a cross-disciplinary approach which includes

performance, writing, drawing, photography and most predominantly video

installation. In subject-matter I engage in womanhood and gender

examinations as well as the visual expression and structures of theatrical

performance. Adding disparate elements together when creating feminine and

cross-gender personas constitutes attempts at finding system in a chaotic

disorder of references, relationships and media.

busy learning Icelandic and making a show

I have not been posting due to my overwhelming need to learn Icelandic. In addition, I have been preparing for a show about the identity of the city of Reykjavik. It involves 9 artists showing work in a few mediums about the status of Reykjavik before and after the fall of the economy.

As for learning Icelandic, it has been a struggle. I finally enrolled at the University of Iceland, where I have to show my face four times a week, sometimes as early as 8:20 in the morning to listen to teachers ramble on in Icelandic. I can only follow if I am awake, excited and totally focused. This is quite a challenge. Besides Icelandic being a very difficult language, it has been exciting to learn how the Icelandic culture comes through in the language. I have been told that the language contains far fewer words than English and that tonation and expression are used more to state ones meaning. I have yet to get to the level where I can have a feel for this. The difficult thing about this language is that every time you learn a new vocabulary word, you have to learn the same word in its 12-48 forms. This is no easy feat considering all of the exceptions to the rules. Furthermore, you have to understand when and why to use the various forms of each word.

Here is a picture of the school I am attending. Keep in mind, when I arrive there at 8am, it is totally dark!

So, anyway, besides learning Icelandic, I have been working on a show I conceptualized to present at the Nordic House. If you are following my work, you might know that I have been making work about Iceland and the city of Reykjavik’s identity. I was awarded funding from the American Scandinavian Foundation to come here and photograph this idea as I saw fit. I soon learned that I was not the only artist who saw this theme as something to focus on in their art. So, given that there was going to be and is going to be a conference on City Planning, I figured it would be a good time for an art show around this theme. The Nordic House has gladly and generously sponsered my idea to create this show.

I am calling it Ipseity – Abeyance. These are words I found that seemed approprite to the themes in te show. Here are the dictionary entries and Icelandic equivalent words.
Main Entry: abeyance > Biðstaða
Part of Speech: noun
Definition : temporary inactivity

Main Entry: ipseity > Einstaklingseðli
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: Selfhood; individual identity, individuality

And here are the artists I have chosen:

composer Nico Muhly

painter Alexander Zaklynsky

photographer Guðmundur Ingólfsson

artists Erla Haraldsdóttir and Bo Melin

photographer Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson

photographer Julia Staples

photographer Pétur Thomsen

sculptur Will Schlough (no website, youll have to come to the show)

Opening Friday February 13th, 19:30 at the Nordic House in conjunction with Vetrarhátíð.

Closing reception on Friday February 27th at 19:00 until 23:00 with Swedish Performer: Malin Ståhl.