Iceland Review - 2018 - August/September

Iceland Review

Power to the People Sanna Magdalena is Reykjavík’s youngest city council member ever Falco Rusticolus The gyrfalcon is the largest and most powerful of all falcon species

Issue 4 — August / September 2018

Communit y, Culture , Nature - Since 1 9 6 3

Lights, Camera, Activism Actor Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir is passionate about the environment

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Iceland Review

News in Brief

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What do Icelandic teens like to read?

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IN FOCUS

Midwives’ Wage Dispute 11–13

The Alleged Death of Haukur Hilmarsson

SANNA MAGDALENA

How are Icelandic children of which both parents are unknown named?

FALCONS

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7

HUGLEIKUR & SAGA

FEATURES

Funny Bones 20–27

Why do Icelanders tend to cross the line with their humour? Comedians Hugleikur Dagsson and Saga Garðarsdóttir try to explain.

Power to the People 36–41

Born in 1992, Sanna Magdalena Mörtudóttir recently became Reykjavík’s youngest city council member ever.

Falco Rusticolus 52-60

The gyrfalcon is the largest and most powerful of all falcon species.

72-76

Ragnheiður Brynjólfsdóttir was born to money and power in the 17th century. Her tragic story has been retold time and time again by authors, poets, and songwriters.

WETLAND

LOOKING BACK

Ragnheiður, the Bishop’s Daughter

HALLDÓRA GEIRHARÐSDÓTTIR

14–17

“You Don’t Have to be a Genius to be in a Band”

Lights, Camera, Activism 62–68

Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir is passionate about protecting the environment. Her newest film centres on environmental activism.

Helping the World Breathe 86–92

Iceland’s wetlands have been under attack for most of the 20th century. Now, people are trying to restore them.

18–19

28–34

Plenty of Fish SALMON FARMING

Snæfellsjökull – Nature’s Treasure Chest Iceland’s World Cup Adventure

104–114

Salmon farming is a polluting industry but for people in small towns in the Westfjords, feels like the community’s only opportunity to survive.

42–50

78–84

The Hunt for the Perfect Shot 94-102

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MUSEUM

Respecting Mother Earth

Bringing Outsider Art Inside 116–123

A visit to a museum of outsider art gives a different perspective on the mainstream art world.

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thermal pools Reykjavík city museum Reykjavík art museum

Choose a City Card that suits your stay: 24, 48 or 72 hours

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FROM THE EDITOR Global warming is not a fun subject to talk about. Neither is sacrificing waterfalls for hydroelectric power plants, industry pollution, or mankind’s urgent need to find a sustainable energy source.

But we need to talk about it because we need to work on some solutions. Iceland has one of the greenest energy sources in the world and, compared to many places, there’s very little pollution. Still, our behaviour is contributing to problems that threaten our climate, our nature, and our health. The incessant consumption our capitalist society thrives on, constantly forces us to choose between short-term gain and long-term prosperity. Like it or not, our willingness to put the environment first is directly tied to how the economy is doing.

Now that I’ve lost about 80% of readers with the first paragraph, let’s talk about the good news. Finding financially rewarding solutions can happen and has happened before. Even though tourism brings its own problems, making the argument to preserve nature simply for nature’s sake is hard, but if people want to pay for the privilege of seeing it, that’s a different story. Early in the 20th century, when hydroelectric power plants were all the rage, plans were made to harness the power of Gullfoss. Sigríður í Brattholti, known as the country’s first environmentalist, was very vocal in her opposition, even going so far as to threaten to throw

herself in the waterfall. Her activism paid off and now, a century later, it’s one of Iceland’s biggest tourist attraction.

The shortsightedness of the time is obvious to us now, but at the time, Sigríður was told that she stood in the way of progress.

Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir’s character in Woman at War is a modern-day Sigríður frá Brattholti, fighting for preserving Iceland’s wilderness instead of selling it for cheap to the highest bidder.

Unfortunately, we’re still having the same discussion, the environment vs. progress and the advancement of the economy. In some areas, we’re reversing damage already done, e.g. restoring the wetlands by filling in the ditches that score the countryside. In other cases, we’re still doing damage, but finding different solutions is hard. In the Westfjords, where economic conditions are difficult, it’s next to impossible for residents to say no to companies who want to invest in their town, even if the industry is polluting.

Lucky for us, there are some things that are both financially rewarding and environmentally friendly. According to Jukka Siltanen’s research, the Snæfellsjökull National Park is a treasure chest, directly creating both jobs and tax revenue. Perhaps we’ll even see a day when the whole of Iceland’s interior is a national park.

Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir Editor, Iceland Review

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Photography by Golli

Words by Jelena Ćirić

Municipalities Play Musical Chairs

Our Boys in Russia

Safety First

Iceland held municipal elections on May 26, which led to significant political shifts around the country. In Reykjavík, however, the status quo more or less remains, with Dagur B. Eggertsson continuing as mayor in a four-party majority. Many municipalities are still without a leader, as an independent mayor was a condition agreed upon during majority negotiations that followed the election. While in some municipalities brand-new parties took the lead thanks to a focus on local issues, in Reykjavík the Socialist Party won their first-ever seat. Significantly, the capital’s city council now also boasts the highest recorded female to male ratio.

The Iceland men’s national football team filled the nation’s hearts with pride as they played their first-ever World Cup this June. Public streaming of the games was set up on big screens across the country, while some locals even went as far as cancelling weddings that conflicted with match times. Strákarnir okkar (Our boys) managed an impressive 1-1 draw in their first match against Argentina.

The match became the most-viewed sports event in Icelandic TV history, with 66% viewership across the nation.

Though the team did not make it past the group stage, their fans around the world expressed pride in the achievements of the smallest nation ever to make it to the tournament. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir tweeted, “It’s been extremely inspiring for all of us in Iceland to see how your belief in the team and its possible success despite the odds, has carried you this far. Congratulations dear boys!” See more on page 42.

Summer is high season for Icelandic tourism, and as the temperatures rise (somewhat) so do tourist numbers.

Increasing the safety of travellers in harsh Icelandic conditions is an ongoing struggle for the nation, and that is as true this year as in the past. In late June, search and rescue teams received four calls from the highlands in just over 24 hours from tourists who had underestimated the difficulty of the area’s weather and conditions. Another two travellers in the highlands flipped a jeep when approaching a river crossing (they were thankfully unharmed). Authorities are stepping up preventative efforts, for example by installed wave-monitoring equipment at popular tourist site Reynisfjara beach, where dangerous “sneaker waves” have proved deadly in the past. Travellers are encouraged to monitor road conditions and weather closely, and consider donating to the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue’s volunteer-run operations.

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ASK ICELAND REVIEW

Photography by Golli

Words by Mariska Moerland

How are Icelandic children of which both parents are unknown named?

Iceland uses a patronymic, and in recent years an increasingly matronymic, naming system. Second names are constructed by using a father’s or mother’s first name and adding the suffix -son or -dóttir. This means Iceland does not use family names like most other Western countries.

Previously, people could at a later age adopt the name of the region they were born in as their surname. Halldór Laxness, who took the name of the farm he grew up in, is probably the most famous example of this. Common names like this include Geirdal, Blöndal, Eyfjörð and Vatnsdal. These days, it’s no longer allowed anymore to register your own family name.

So, what happens when naming orphans? There are actually very few Icelandic orphans. Children whose parents both died are sent into foster care and keep their original surnames. In case of infants of which both parents might be alive but are unknown, they are given the surnames of their adoptive parents.

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Iceland Review

What do Icelandic teens like to read?

Even though Icelandic youth read all kinds of novels and comics, the Icelandic Literature Centre has noticed an increased interest in fantasy, horror and science fiction books among young adults.

For example, Hildur Knútsdóttir has published two popular books, Vetrarfrí (Winter Holiday) and Vetrarhörkur (Winter Frost). The first book tells the story of a normal family in modern Iceland when all of a sudden, the plague breaks out.

Day-to-day dealings are not important anymore as everybody tries to stay alive.

To make matters worse, aliens are responsible. In the sequel, the story centres around what the aliens want.

Another example of popular literature is the trilogy Hrafnsauga (Raven’s Eye), Draumsverð (Dream Worth) & Orm-

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Iceland has its own Goosebumps series called Gæsahúð written by Helgi Jónsson, which is also popular.

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IN FOCUS

Words by Anna Marsibil Clausen Photography by Golli

Midwives’ Wage Dispute In 2013, ljósmóðir was voted the most beautiful word in the Icelandic language.

The word translates to midwife, but its literal meaning is “mother of light.” Even if their title sounds ethereal, the members of this currently all-female profession insist that their demands for increased wages are all but lofty. The Ministry of Finance disagrees and so after months of contract negotiations, the midwives called for a strike.

Mountain too high, valley too low The Midwives’ Association’s (LMFÍ) last strike lasted up to three days at a time over a period of three weeks during the summer of 2015. Much to its 285 members’ dismay, it ended when parliament approved a bill which forced the dispute into the Court of Arbitration. The court’s ruling expired in August 2017, leaving midwives free to renegotiate their contracts.

As before, the gap between their ideas and the government’s negotiating committee’s proposals proved too wide and the dispute was taken over by the State Conciliations and Mediation Office in early February 2018.

The Ministry of Finance has pointed out that LMFÍ’s salary development has been consistent with the development

of other groups within the Icelandic Confederation of University Graduates.

Meanwhile, LMFÍ believes that midwives’ starting salaries should reflect that they have similar education levels to lawyers, vets and doctors – professions which are all seen as more traditionally male. According to LMFÍ, the pay gap between these fields is a gendered one and must be corrected.

Discussions around Icelandic labour unions have intensified lately.

Conversations and cautioning words about the adverse economic effects of raising working and middle-class wages in the public sector have been complicated by an upswing in the private sector paired with largescale pay raises for the people at the top over the past two years. A 45%

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Iceland Review

wage increase was handed out to parliamentarians in 2016 and earlier this month, an 11% increase was announced for 48 heads of public institutions. Of those, National University Hospital of Iceland’s CEO Páll Matthíasson receives the largest monthly paycheck of ISK 1.3 million ($12 000/€10 000).

LMFÍ believes that midwives’ starting salaries should reflect that they have similar education levels to lawyers, vets and doctors – professions which are all seen as more traditionally male.

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More education – lower salary Midwives face many field-specific challenges. Not only does the physically demanding nature of their job make it hard to maintain a full-time position, but the shift system – rotating from day to evening to night – makes it almost impossible to do so without breaking the law on how many consecutive hours health care professionals can work. According to LMFÍ, only 14% of their members work full-time. The average load across the

association is between 70-80%.

In addition, a nurse’s starting salary is currently higher than that of a graduating midwife, despite the former being a prerequisite for taking on the two-year education required for the latter. This is seen as especially aggravating since nurses’ work experience is null and void when they become midwives, meaning that they have to start over at the bottom of the pay scale.

According to a survey conducted

by LMFÍ, a majority of its members believes their monthly base salary should be raised by 17%, to ISK 671 000 ($6 240/€5 310).

“Who delivered you?”

With no solution in sight in late April, a group of midwives at the National University Hospital of Iceland declared

Iceland Review

that they would be halting all overtime work. However, they retracted the declaration two days later after the government asserted that overtime wasn’t a choice, calling the action illegal.

In a television interview the following weekend, Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson said that the midwives’ demands were about 20% above the government’s limit. Their salary increase, he said, couldn’t be multiple times that of other groups.

These comments seemed to add fuel to the midwives’ fire. The members of LMFÍ’s negotiating committee showed up to the State Conciliations and Mediation Office wearing shirts with the words “Government Property” written across their chests – a spin on the “Hospital Property” stamp on clothing worn by their patients. The committee chair, Katrín Sif Sigurgeirsdóttir,

described the minister’s words as “shameful,” calling them yet another gut punch for midwives. Protesters outside the building wielded signs with questions such as “Who delivered you, Bjarni Ben?” and “Would a mid-husband get fair pay?” Meanwhile, others held a large pink sheet with a slit down the middle by the office doors so that anybody entering or leaving would be “reborn.”

The two parties finally signed a contract at the end of May, only to have it struck down by 63% of LMFÍ’s voting members less than two weeks later. The failed contract reportedly included a 4.21% wage increase along with a payment of ISK 60 million ($558 000/€475 000), intended to correct salary discrepancies along with other unnamed measures.

The midwives strike back At the time of publishing, the debating parties had met over a dozen times at the State Conciliations and Mediation Office to no avail. LMFÍ has called for a strike in the form of an associationwide “extra overtime ban” from July 18 where its members will only work the overtime required of them by law – no more, no less.

As a growing number of midwives resign, politicians, officials and health care workers express increased concern in statements to the media, while expecting parents have taken to the Facebook group Mothers and Fathers Stand with Midwives to express anger and fear. So far, 23 resignations have taken effect, prompting the National University Hospital of Iceland to put in place an action plan to meet the added strain.

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Iceland Review

IN FOCUS

Words by Anna Marsibil Clausen

Since the news of his death broke, two videos have been posted of Haukur. In the videos, he states his intent to fight fascism, admonishing the West for its lack of reaction to the problems in the Middle East, and describes himself as an anarchist at heart.

The Alleged Death of Haukur Hilmarsson When news broke out that Haukur Hilmarsson had been killed in Syria, his friends and family grieved. But in the following days, when sources proved inconsistent and there was no body to be found, they started to wonder if he could be alive.

News of martyrdom In March, major Turkish media outlets published stories about an Icelandic national being killed in Syria. Around the same time, a Facebook post by an organisation called the International Freedom Battalion (IFB) surfaced, naming the fallen Icelander as Haukur Hilmarsson. According to the post, he was killed February 24 in an airstrike on the district of Afrin in the northern part of the country.

The IFB is an armed group of foreign fighters who fight alongside Kurdish militia in the Syrian Civil War. They celebrated the 31-year-old as a martyr in the fight against fascism.

The Icelandic media picked up the story but didn’t name Haukur immediately, as the news had yet to be confirmed. It was his mother Eva Hauksdóttir, a prolific blogger and activist, who officially broke the news the next morning on her website with a simple yet haunting statement: “It looks like my Haukur is dead.”

A runner, a flagger, a fighter An avid protester from a young age, Haukur had acquired a few nicknames in the Icelandic media. He was dubbed “the tarmac runner” in July 2008 when he ran onto an airport runway to stop a plane transporting a refugee out of the country. In November that year, he was arrested after raising a Bónus supermarket flag on the roof of the parliament building during a financial crisis protest. This act earned him the title, “the Bónus flagman.”

Haukur stayed largely out of the limelight the following decade, but his taste for radical activism grew. In the aforementioned Facebook post, the IFB stated he

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Iceland Review

“The only thing we can know for sure at this moment is that we don’t know if Haukur is alive or dead.”

intended to fight with their organisation in Manbij, Syria in 2016 but couldn’t reach the conflict zone. He returned later, to fight in Raqqa against ISIS and then once more to defend Afrin against the Turkish forces, where he eventually gave his life for the cause.

Lost, not found For Haukur’s loved ones, this devastating loss would be further complicated. For one, they felt that the Icelandic government lacked the ability and drive to find his body.

Members of a Kurdish militia unit reportedly searched the site three weeks after the attack but found nothing. According to Turkish media, his remains were in the possession of the Turkish military but when the Icelandic government contacted their Turkish counterpart, the Turks claimed no knowledge of the body’s whereabouts.

As frustration grew, Eva accused the government of being “useless.” In a statement, the family wrote that the government had been “treating the search for his body as if it were an item in the lost and found.”

New hope “A week ago, I thought it next to impossible that my son could be alive,” Eva wrote on her blog a few days later. Upon closer inspection, she said, the information she’d been given seemed based on “rumours and guesses.”

The IFB said the Facebook announcement was posted after Turkish media had already published a story about Haukur. But if that’s the truth, Eva wrote, the Turks would have tortured him to give out identifying information – and if they caught him alive, he could still be. It also turned out that the IFB didn’t have direct contact with any firsthand witnesses of Haukur’s death and, therefore, lacked clear-cut evidence.

“The only thing we can know for sure at this moment is that we don’t know if Haukur is alive or dead,” Eva wrote. “And we have to search with the mindset that he is alive and in mortal peril.”

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Looking away While his loved ones have lauded Haukur as a hero, some social media users called him a war tourist, even insinuating that he brought his death upon himself.

His friends and family disagree strongly. “What became his downfall was the lack of one ability others have: being able to look away,” Lárus Páll Birgisson, wrote in an op-ed published by several media outlets. “Of two wrong choices, Haukur chose to act rather than do nothing.”

Lárus later interrupted a session in parliament by yelling from the pews, calling the political silence on the matter of Syria deafening. On the June 17, Icelandic National Day, Haukur’s brother was arrested for climbing on top of the government office building in an ode to his brother’s disobedience ten years prior, switching out the Icelandic flag with the Turkish one.

What now?

Minister for Foreign Affairs Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson has said that about 10% of his staff has contributed to the search and that the case was made an absolute priority from the beginning. In an official statement, Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir asserted that the government had sought advice in the matter from neighbouring nations and that she had personally brought up the case in a conversation with Angela Merkel, which led to the German government lending a helping hand. Even so, little if any progress has been made.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs hasn’t shared the full extent of its information with Haukur’s family, citing issues of privacy and confidentiality. Some of Haukur’s friends have expressed the desire to travel to Syria in order to look for him themselves, but the government has strongly advised against such a journey. On her blog, Eva says she persuaded one group not to enter Syria in May. Still, she wonders what would happen if she travelled to Afrin herself and actually found her son’s remains.

“The body has lost its flesh long ago. If he is dead. But maybe I would find a bloody jacket sleeve,” she writes.

“What would I do? Can you take human bones you find out in the open in the Middle East and bring them home?”

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Composer Béla Bartók once famously said, “Competitions are for horses, not artists.”

The Iceland Music Experiments (IME) have proven him wrong many times over. A yearly competition for up-and-coming Icelandic musicians, IME have since 1982 been a steppingstone to success for bands such as Mammút, Agent Fresco, and Of Monsters and Men. This year’s winning band, Ateria, says horsing around together is key to making good music.

Words by Jelena Ćirić

Photography by Golli

“You Don’t Have to Be a Genius to Be in a Band”

“Most of our rehearsals have at least one break where we go out into the yard and mess around,” says Eir (15), the band’s cellist, bassist and lead singer. This playful spirit spills over into the rehearsals. “We have a glass with slips of paper that we draw from. Some of them have song titles on them, and if we pull one of those, then we rehearse that song. Some of them just say ‘compose’ or ‘jam.’”

Eir’s sister Ása (18, guitar, bass and vocals) and their cousin Fönn (13, drums) are the band’s other members. Despite their young age, the two sisters have been playing together for years. “When we heard that Fönn had started to play drums, we got very excited about starting a band with her.”

The group’s unusual instrumentation goes a long way toward creating their unique sound, which has been described as folk goth. Still, the trio is not particularly concerned with labels. “We just play what we play,” Ása says. “We find it more fun to just try out different things rather than tie ourselves down in a particular place,” adds Eir. One thing that makes taking chances easier, the musicians insist, is knowing each other very well.

“To write music you really have to have confidence to share your ideas, and it’s a scrillion times easier when you work with someone you know well,” confesses Eir. “I’m more daring when it comes to suggesting weird ideas,” Ása notes.

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Outside of rehearsal, Ása, Eir, and Fönn have spent many summers at their grandparents’ cabin in North Iceland collecting down from eider ducks.

The band’s name, Ateria, comes from Somateria mollissima, the Latin name for common eider.

The three may have to duck out of meeting their feathered friends this summer, however, as their music schedule is filling up.

Part of the prize IME winners receive, is 20 hours of studio time in renowned studio Sundlaugin, just outside Reykjavík. “There are like 10 organs, and keyboards, and synths there,” Eir gushes excitedly.

“It’s really awesome.” While the girls are clearly excited about the opportunity, they are still not sure if they want to be musicians when they “grow up.”

“I’m just doing what I think is fun now,” says Fönn.

“Maybe that’ll change.”

It’s easy to see that talent runs in the family, but the band is also quick to credit nonprofit organisation Girls rock! Iceland for giving them the skills to form Ateria. Not only did Fönn start playing drums at the association’s music camp, they all learned valuable lessons. “You learn all kinds of things there. What it’s like to be in a band, how to write music,” says Eir. “And about stage presence, and equal rights,” Ása chimes in. “It gives you a different perspective on making music. That you don’t have to be a genius to be in a band. You can just do it.”

Iceland Review

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Iceland Review

The

Curious

Case of

Icelandic

Humour

F U N N Y 20

Iceland Review

Words by Gunnar Jรณnsson Illustration by Hugleikur Dagsson Portraits by Golli

B O N E S 21

Iceland Review

If any foreigner intends to spend an extended time with an Icelander, he will soon have to face an uncomfortable truth about the island’s inhabitants: their sense of humour is often a little weird. While the British sense of humour is wry, witty and intelligent, the American one is characteristically gregarious and the German one is famously nonexistent, Icelandic humour is often described as too dark, surreal and, at times, antagonistic.

In fact, jokes about death, rape and incest abound to the point where foreigners sometimes find it hard to laugh.

The enigma of Icelandic and Nordic humour as a whole was even the subject of a recent inquiry by the BBC, where Hollywood industry insiders were interviewed about the popularity of Scandinavian crime thrillers as opposed to its comedies. Whereas the “Nordic noir” influence has easily infiltrated outside markets, Scandinavian humour is having a harder time translating.

What is it that makes Icelandic jokes so ironic and bleak? Arguably, it’s the country’s geography coupled with the coping mechanisms of its inhabitants, who have faced poverty, darkness and death through the centuries and lived to tell the tale. Indeed, when asked about the perceived “dark and depressing” sense of humour that characterises some of North Europe’s cinema, Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson, who won the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his 2015 dramedy Hrútar (Rams), tellingly explained to the BBC, “We have to make fun of our own misery or we wouldn’t survive.”

A geographical thing Recently, I overheard a “humorous” conversation in downtown Reykjavík that might give insight into Grímur’s words. This was in February, the time when Icelanders have endured many months of near total darkness, their bodies completely drained of vitamin D and serotonin. Sure, in February days are getting longer, but the preceding months have weakened Icelanders defences to the point where, sadly, the country’s suicide rate is at its highest. Two friends were talking over a beer at a bar, surrounded by friends and strangers alike.

“The day is certainly getting longer,” one of them said.

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“True. It’s too late for me to kill myself now!” the other replied, nonchalantly.

“It’s like my uncle always says,” his friend replied without missing a beat, “you only kill yourself once!”

As distasteful as the conversation was, you could all but see the release of tension in people within earshot brought on by this morbid exchange.

Why so SAD? Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is most certainly a real thing, the mood disorder affects people all over the world, mostly in winter when the days are shorter. In December and January, Icelanders are only graced with four to five hours of sunlight a day, which then reverses during summer, when they’re bathed in sunlight to the point of madness.

Add to this the tortuous history of Icelandic settlement, where harsh weather conditions and poverty ruled the island’s inhabitants’ lives for hundreds of years. Just over a century ago, it was common practice amongst Icelandic parents to christen more than one of their children by the same name. In those days, Iceland’s child mortality rate was so high that if you liked a particular name, you had to make sure it lived on by giving it to a lot of your children and hoping that at least one of them survived.

Humorously enduring Looking at grim historical and geographical factors like these, it becomes apparent that Iceland needed an outlet for difficult emotions and joking about them seems to have been a preferred method throughout the ages.

But as living conditions in the country have steadily improved since early settlements (the island’s child mortality rates are now among the lowest in the world) and its inhabitants are now citizens of a globalised world, perhaps there is a chance for Icelanders to grow up, so to speak, sense of humour included.

In order to better understand the intricacies of Icelandic humour, I conferred with two of Iceland’s most celebrated comics, actress, writer and stand-up comedian Saga Garðarsdóttir and cartoonist, writer, and stand-up comedian Hugleikur Dagsson.

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HUGLEIKUR DAGSSON How do you feel when you are creating your cartoons?

What do you think about?

I have one rule: if I think it’s funny, it’s funny. That’s my mantra. There are various other rules I try to follow, but that’s the most important one. All rules are made to be broken, though.

How would you describe the humour of Icelanders?

Dark and a bit desperate. We are constantly looking for validation as a nation and I feel like that seeps into our comedy. But all in all, I think we’re pretty funny. Even when we’re not trying to be funny. Maybe even especially then.

Would you say that Icelandic humour is blacker or more ironic than humour in other countries? If so, why do you think that is?

I had a theory once that the farther away from the equator you are, the better your sense of humour. In recent years, I have realised that was a xenophobic view at best and a sense of humour is more individual. But I guess Icelanders, like all other nations, are moulded by their surroundings, weather and language. Which means we are harsh, unpredictable and weird, as is our sense of humour.

Who are your biggest fans outside of Iceland?

The Finns. Since I started doing comedy like 17 years ago, I’ve travelled probably 30 times to Finland to promote my books and to do stand-up. Finns and Icelanders are pretty similar, I think. They have a slight-

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Hugleikur is known for his gruesome cartoons, which some might consider indicative of the dark depths to which Icelandic humour can plunge.

ly bloodier history which makes them a bit darker.

What would you say to people who think that your comedy is in “bad taste”?

I would say, “You’re absolutely right.” It’s perfectly natural if my cartoons make you angry. Because that anger comes from the right place. I know some of my followers feel like those people are prudes, but there’s nothing wrong with being a prude. Prudes are an essential part of the ecosystem of comedy.

We need the so called “PC police” to draw a line in the sand to know what line to cross when we’re joking.

Have you felt any pressure to change or soften your comedy lately?

I can’t say I have, personally. They do talk about a rise of political correctness today, but I feel that this has always been a factor. There is always something new that we shouldn’t joke about. That’s just how we evolve. Homophobia was much more accepted in comedy a couple of decades ago. But now, we know better. I never see it as us being banned to say things. More like a challenge to be smarter when joking about whatever it is. As long as you joke about a controversial topic with understanding or curiosity instead of judgement or hatred you can do anything. I know it sounds sappy, but love is indeed the secret ingredient.

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SAGA GARÐARSDÓTTIR Where do you think Icelanders are in their comedic development?

We’re coming out of a very ironic and cynical phase into a very different one. The further we go back in time, the darker our humour gets, generally speaking. The Middle Ages were probably characterised by very dark and destructive humour, with its pornographic poetry and insult verses. Until recently, Icelanders were pretty behind on matters relating to gender identity and equality.

But in a very short time, we’ve entered a more informed and inclusive phase.

What do you think are the psychological underpinnings of this development?

We used to have this need to be difficult and dark in our comedy precisely because we were so behind on social matters. We unconsciously used that comedy to propel us forward to greater understanding. I also think this is what’s happening with modern feminism, by the way. When you feel like no-one listens to you or respects you or that your life is characterised by hardship and oppression, you become more aggressive and antagonistic. You sort of lash out in the subconscious hope that you can make things easier. Now, as us Icelanders are becoming more open and enlightened, we have less need to be difficult. I feel the situation is becoming that of, “You don’t need to scream, we’re listening.” This is really opening us up to a new era, and new comedy too.

So, we’ve used humour to release tension, even as a coping mechanism?

Both! I once watched a documentary stating that laughter was originally a fear reaction. When us monkeys are surprised, we let out monkey noises, i.e. laughter. Laughing is both a state of panic and stress release. I recently attended a forum on humour where they said that cemetery workers often have a very dark humour that comes directly from being in such close proximity to death. We also laugh when we feel someone has said something that hasn’t been said before. Comedy is putting things in context, finding the simplest way to say something complex. When I write a sketch, for example, I first try to think about what’s true and work from there.

How do you feel about political correctness?

Being PC is a good thing. What I think most troubles

Iceland Review

Saga is one of the greatest contemporary Icelandic comedians, celebrated for her sharp social commentary.

people is that word, “correct,” because that sort of implies that something else is “wrong.” To me, PC is about being considerate. If you’re considerate, it doesn’t have to change what you joke about. You’re allowed to make fun of everything, by the same token people are allowed to think you’re an asshole. When I’ve crossed the line with a joke – and this happens to every comedian – I welcome it when people come up to me and try to explain why they felt I was being insensitive. And even when I feel I was misunderstood, I treat it as an opportunity to ask myself, “Was I being clear enough?”

What I don’t like is when someone gets offended on someone else’s behalf. You know, when a person is sensitive because she thinks someone else might be sensitive to your jokes. Sometimes we give people power by making fun of them. We can be so afraid to joke about someone that they become invisible. To mock something or someone knowingly can sometimes be the most inclusive thing you can do.

But there’s a line?

There’s nothing inherently cool about being nasty. To me, that’s not a particularly funny or important activity.

Jokes, by their very nature, are supposed to be pleasing.

Same thing goes for being too clever. Comedy is most funny when people can relate, and they understand the joke. There’s no virtue in being a misunderstood comic.

Nowadays, what I really respond to are things that are silly and a little surreal. Pointing out something that is true in a sort of dorky way.

It is sometimes said that comedians are depressed people. Do you agree with that?

I feel depression can both be a prerequisite and a consequence of doing comedy. Depressed or anxious people are often very smart people, as I think us Icelanders often are. That can be perfect for comedy, because smart people often have very analytical minds and a deep-seated need to understand the world around them.

The problem is that comedians can sometimes develop an addiction to outside validation. Your whole selfworth starts to depend on whether other people laugh or not, and that’s a potentially dangerous situation. You need to know yourself and believe in yourself first.

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Iceland Review

N A TURE’S TREASU R E CHEST Words by Jóhann Páll Ástvaldsson

Photography by Golli

Portrait by Kristinn Ingvarsson

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Iceland Review

Nature’s treasure chest

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Iceland Review

The Central Highland is one of Europe’s largest remaining wilderness areas, and it deserves a national framework for protection and development.

The area surrounding Snæfellsjökull glacier is one of Iceland’s most beautiful. Snæfellsjökull National Park is dominated by the glacier, which sits at a height of 1 446m atop a 700 000-year-old stratovolcano. Diverse birdlife, seals dozing on black sand beaches, fantastic natural rock formations along with beautiful caves hidden in lava fields – there’s no question that such a natural treasure should be protected at all costs. Luckily, the economic gains seem to outweigh the losses – at least according to Finnish researcher Jukka Siltanen’s work. The natural pearl of Snæfellsjökull has proven to be a gem of sorts for the Icelandic economy.

Economic powerhouse Siltanen has studied the economic impact of Snæfellsjökull National Park and is currently leading a research project which aims to study other nature reserves and parks in Iceland. The raw numbers are impressive for Snæfellsjökull National Park as the economic impact to cost ratio is 45:1, that is to say the money spent on the park is returned 45-fold into the Icelandic economy. The tax numbers alone are enough to justify all expenses, as the tax income from Snæfellsjökull National Park is ten times higher than the amount spent on the park. In total, the park creates revenue of ISK 3.9 billion ($36.4 million/€31 million) as well as contributing to creating approximately 700 jobs.

Siltanen credits this economic impact mostly to foreign travellers. “The main reason is of course that over 90% of the visitors are foreign tourists who spend quite a lot of money on various services (tours, guides, rental cars, food, accommodation,

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etc.) connected to the park visits. In Finland, in comparison, most of the visitors to most national parks are domestic and many visit parks near their homes thus using only a fraction of the services. Also, the number of visitors in the three national parks in Iceland is almost the same as in Finland for 39 national parks. That creates quite a different situation for visitor-based income vs. park management costs.”

The Icelandic highlands The idea of making the whole of the Icelandic highlands one national park has recently surfaced. “I think it’s a very important initiative. The Central Highland is one of Europe’s largest remaining wilderness areas, and it deserves a national framework for protection and development,” Siltanen explains.

“There are quite a lot of different ideas for its development in terms of tourism, access, and power generation, for example, and I think these different issues should be looked at through one comprehensive management plan to make sure that Iceland doesn’t inadvertently lose something very valuable.” A national park is not just created out of nothing, there are certain things that need to be ensured before creating one, “I want to highlight the need to connect with people on a personal level on why it’s being done.

There needs to be more communication about the initiative as there are still a lot of misunderstandings and incorrect information in people’s minds.”

Only 4% of the total visitors to the Snæfellsjökull National Park are domestic. Are Icelanders missing out on the beauty of our national parks? “I don’t think so. I believe many Icelanders feel at the moment that the tourist hot spots in the national parks are quite

Iceland Review

crowded, but there are other places in the national parks and protected areas that are not as crowded and still represent the beauty and solitude of the land to Icelanders. I actually have a feeling that the proposed Central Highland national park represents the core values Icelanders associate with the highlands and nature perhaps even more than the current national parks – in that sense I think we are at an exciting new beginning,” Siltanen claims.

Nature vs. tourism The creation of a national park can lead to a certain level of protection which ensures that visitors can enjoy nature better, according to Siltanen. “Naturally, tourism can have a degrading effect on nature; we’ve seen this in many places in Iceland already in terms of litter, trail erosion, loss of vegetation, tire tracks where there shouldn’t be and so on. But protection of an area ensures that the area is managed in terms of access, prevention of damage, monitoring and restoration if needed. There is also a clear authority to make the decision to limit access if, for example, visitor numbers are unsustainable for the area in question.” For people who are worried that a national park in the highlands would limit their use of the land, Siltanen says that there’s no preset level of protection for national parks that has to be maintained everywhere. “The level of protection can vary a lot depending on the context. National parks can have zones that have different levels of protection due to sensitivity and protection requirements of different areas within the park. There are national parks which include entire towns with people and their livelihoods, for example Cairngorms National Park in

Scotland that is home to 18 500 people – 43% of them employed in the visitor economy, by the way.”

The future of national parks Are more national parks the answer for the future, both in terms of protecting nature and to foster economic growth? “There seems to be quite a lot of positive movement towards environmental protection now both in Iceland and globally, though sometimes I have a somewhat sombre feeling that it is only happening because we see how rapidly the remaining nature and wildlife is being decimated around us. I think our understanding of different types of protected areas and reasons for protection has also greatly increased, allowing us to make smarter decisions about what and how to protect, and to what objective.” Siltanen continues, “New national parks are still being opened, and something that is perhaps becoming a trend in densely-built continental Europe (in contrast to Finland and Iceland) is a concept called rewilding, where areas that have been built up for people are being returned to a natural state and protected.

To harness or to foster The potential harnessing of Iceland’s natural resources has been a focal point of the national debate in recent years. Studies such as this one shed a new light on this seemingly never-ending debate.

It appears that nature protection and nature-based tourism is a viable option compared to natural resource utilization. The creation and protection of natural parks is an economically strong alternative to harnessing the beauty of the country’s glacial rivers and high temperature geothermal areas.

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“I at endlessly

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can on

stare Snæfellsjökull a clear day.”

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“There’s a positive movement towards environmental protection right now, but I can’t help the somber feeling that it stems from how rapidly nature and wildlife is being decimated all around us.”

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Iceland Review

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Iceland Review

The Reykjavík City Hall welcomes a fresh newcomer this term in Sanna Magdalena Mörtudóttir. A majority of the newly appointed city council is comprised of women, none garnering more attention than newcomer Sanna. Sanna is in many ways in stark contrast with the typical city council member. She’s experienced a life of poverty, she’s young, she’s a person of colour, she’s an anthropologist, and last but not least… she’s a socialist. A founding member of Sósialistaflokkurinn (The Socialist Party), she has spearheaded the party’s foray into politics which culminated with 6.4% of the votes for the city council in Reykjavík. Born in 1992, Sanna broke a 44-year record by becoming the youngest city council member ever in Reykjavík. The person whose record she beat was Davíð Oddsson, a former prime minister and mayor of Reykjavík. I met Sanna in downtown Reykjavík, her new battling ground, and it’s safe to say Sanna proves a stark contrast to Davíð.

Words by Jóhann Páll Ástvaldsson

Photography by Golli

Power to the People

A life of poverty Sanna is no stranger to poverty as she and her mother long struggled to make ends meet. The mother and daughter once had to last a whole day with a packet of Polo candy as their only nutrition, while her mother juggled two jobs to make ends meet. Although Sanna is now a city council member, her history of poverty still lingers over her life and led her into politics. “When I see people’s reactions I realize how brutal my upbringing was. I am reexperiencing it in many ways, as I often thought before there were many others who had it worse. But when someone hasn’t had a real meal for a long time – it’s a dire situation.” Her mother is worse for wear after the previous decades, “My mother receives disability compensation, a direct effect of her working days. She worked at a kindergarten through the day, which she then cleaned after closing. She was constantly working but we could not make ends meet. We bought nothing but basic necessities, yet the money didn’t last us the month. She has experienced severe anxiety attacks which eventually forced her to retire. The disability compensation doesn’t last her the month either. People want to get out of the situation but they are stuck in a system which keeps them down. This is not just a period in my life which is over. You become angry at the

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system and the fact that it’s keeping people in a vicious cycle.”

Did her experience of poverty lead her into politics, I ask her. “Definitely, the experience affects me and I know of a lot of people in the same situation. There are so many things we need to improve which many are not aware of. It still rattles me in many ways. Whenever I hear the sound of clinging coins I get an uncomfortable feeling as it reminds me of when my mother was counting coins, around the 20th of the month, and I knew that this money had to last us the month.” A revealing status on Facebook about the poverty she and her mother experienced eventually led her to come in contact with similar minded people “I had no experience of politics and my first foray into this field was on the first of May last year, when I became a founding member of Sósíalistaflokkurinn.”

Truth lies in a name Like many things about her, Sanna’s name is an unconventional one. “I was originally named Diana, which I believe comes from Princess Diana, as I spent my first seven years in England, where my father lived. I was alone with my mother a lot and she started calling me Sanna when I was two years old. We had to apply for the name’s approval

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with the Icelandic naming committee, and to make sure that it fit with the Icelandic language and was declined correctly. The name is connected to the truth, to prove something or proving yourself. They approved the name and I became the first Icelandic Sanna. Many think it’s a foreign name, they simply can’t understand it. I believe that people think it’s a foreign name due to my look. ‘Oh, I thought it was your African name,’ I sometimes hear people say”.

Here to work Sanna wasted no time in the city council as she put forth seven proposals in the first city council meeting, normally an easy-going send-off full of formalities. She has certainly ruffled some feathers in her short life as a city council member. “I feel that I am approaching matters in a different way, and definitely disrupting tradition. I put forth a proposal that city council members should not receive extra pay for meetings that take place during office hours.

The discourse was that there was a certain tradition for these high wages. That this is simply how it has always been, and that it should always be like this.”

Systematic poverty Sanna’s mission is clear, to foster a movement that gives poor people the tools to succeed. “If we look at the preschool system, it is clear there is a low-wage policy being driven, while those who work in the city hall are on the other end of the spectrum. They even get paid overtime for sitting three committee meetings a month. In the current context it seems to make sense to give higher wages to city council and committee members, while other groups have to work extremely hard to get a pay raise on their minimum wage salaries. These groups are systematically held down. We are a rich nation and should ensure that everyone can have basic necessities. We know that wages do not cover these necessities, while there is no ceiling in rent market prices. There is a long list for social housing – we are systemically pushing these people to the margins of society. The poor need higher wages. It begins and ends with finances and people have to spend a large portion of their salary on rent. People are working two and three jobs so it’s clear that the problems do not lie with the individuals.”

Reykjavík, the “fun” city The city council has often been accused of catering to well-off people rather than tackling real issues. “I keep on hearing all about how the city of Reykjavík is so fun, and that everything is great. That it is a city that everyone enjoys living in and all can enjoy. Meanwhile, there are people who experience poverty. There are immigrants living in

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dilapidated housing, paying enormous rent. There are senior citizens on low pensions. How can we look past this and claim that everyone can enjoy the city?

We need to ensure that everyone can enjoy the city of Reykjavík. These people cannot afford to take part in what the city has to offer, nor do they have the time. How “It’s often stated that women have can you while juggling three jobs? managed to break the glass ceiling We need to get these voices to the in Iceland, but the reality is that table. We need to hear from this there are loads of women stuck in other Reykjavík, not the booming the cellar. We need more talk about Reykjavík.” Do you feel Iceland is foreign women, the status of those the society of equality we so often who don’t speak Icelandic, as well claim we are? “It is a myth that as poor women.”

Iceland is a community without classes where everyone is equal, with equal opportunities. We all know that it isn’t yet we have brought attention to how equal we are and portrayed that image outwardly. It’s not an equal society. I believe it’s good to talk honestly about it and press the issue.”

Hidden racism As a person of colour, Sanna has a different outlook than many of her fellow countrymen. An anthropologist from the University of Iceland, she has made questions of race and self-image the focus of her research thus far. “Icelanders of colour often get questions from strangers regarding origins or whether they are adopted. Even if people don’t mean anything by it, it’s a constant reminder that you are different. It’s embedded in the idea that Icelanders are white, and this bigger image that we’re decended from Vikings, and that those who are brown or black cannot belong to Iceland. You feel that from constant reminders of the fact that you’re different. You’re spoken to in English, or you get compliments for your Icelandic.

It’s connected to the homogeneous idea that all Icelanders are white, Christian, that both parents are Icelandic and people can trace their lineage back through the ages. Even if an individual has a different background it doesn’t make him any less Icelandic. Even though this is not direct, violent racism, there is clear prejudice to be found in these microaggressions where people are constantly reminded of how different they are.”

“It can foster a feeling of being excluded. Should I define myself as half Tanzanian and half Icelandic?

I’m not half anything – I’m simply a whole me.”

“Race, the obsolete term” Talking about race should be a thing of the past, Sanna maintains. “The term ‘race’ doesn’t have any meaning from a genetic viewpoint. It‘s important to emphasize the fact that splitting people into groups

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Iceland Review

based on their skin colour has no biological weight.

There isn‘t a large enough part of our genes that’s different enough to claim that we are different. This is something that many aren‘t aware of. We need to work towards the idea that it‘s impossible to split people up into different groups where you will find people with vastly different physical and mental characteristics. This splitting into groups is upheld in media, and we need to eradicate the idea that is is possible to group people together.“ Socialists, in this time and age?

Many a reader will raise an eyebrow that a socialist party has shown up in the Icelandic political scene. The party, along with Sanna, have a clear vision for the future and their goals. “We’re not afraid of stating that we are socialists, even though socialism We’re fighting against the has received its share of criticism injustices of society, and it’s in the past. We are radical and will connected to the ongoing not put up with the current system. working-class battle. The Capitalism is the enemy. It keeps on injustice in society is rising getting more violent. It‘s a system while those who have the which doens‘t work and we‘re rising most are taking a large share up against it. With the power of of the cake, at the cost of the people we can achieve so much. those who have it worst.

It‘s all built on the fact that the public rises up and states ‘we’re

not having this anymore!’. If we get the numbers, fantastic things can happen.”

What does the future hold for such a party? “We want to be a large, and powerful movement where we are in constant communication with those outside the party. We want to be the advocate for those who experience that the system of the city is not serving them. Poor people, renters, foreigners, senior citizens. We want the voices of these groups into the city council. I don’t want to lock myself in a room with other city council members. I’d rather ensure that people‘s voices be heard, and that they appear in my proposals. These voices need to be heard at the decision making-table.”

Plunging into the deep end It looks like Sanna is a woman with a plan, who’s unafraid of speaking up and taking on big challenges. Her career still measured in weeks, she‘s already carving out a name in Icelandic poltics.

“Everything is still a little new for me but I‘m going to discover where I can most effectively work against injustice. I‘m open to everything. I didn’t see being a city council member as part of my future plans, but I‘ll jump into the deep end wherever I‘ll find it.”

I‘ve got a feeling this name is worth remembering.

Sanna, the truthful one.

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WOR L D

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Words by Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir

U

Photography by Golli

P

ADVENT U R E Last year, Iceland became the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup tournament in men’s football.

For a nation just about a century old, living on a small island north of almost everything, making such an achievement on an international scale is something that will go down in history.

For the past few decades, Icelanders put a lot of energy and pride into building up top-notch training facilities and quality youth programs for sports of all kinds. Icelanders have excelled in sports such as gymnastics, handball, and golf but the crowning glory of Iceland’s sporting industry are the national football teams. Excelling in the world’s favourite sport, and certainly the most watched sport in Iceland, has

unlocked new levels of national pride in this small group of 350 000 souls.

As the men’s football team travelled to Russia to compete with the best of the best, the whole nation held its breath. Airline tickets to Russia sold like hotcakes, as did the official team shirts. Buses, offices, homes, and faces were decorated with the Icelandic flag and the national broadcasting company scored record ratings on game days. Every football enthusiast was in an emotional uproar as the game against Argentina, led by Messi, ended in a draw, but even when the team wasn’t winning, the boys had the love and attention of supporters from Russia to Akureyri, and even a small gas station in Blönduós.

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Iceland Review

16 JUN 2018 – 16:00 Local time —— GROUP D Moscow, Spartak Stadium

A R GENTINA Argentina 1—1 Iceland

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Iceland Review

Months of builtup tension was unleashed in a pre-game feast as rival fans gathered in a jubilant scene on the way to Spartak Stadium. The scenes spread throughout the city, excited Icelanders taking over Moscow’s famed underground as well as the Zaryadye Park, with Kremlin in the background.

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22 JUN 2018 – 18:00 Local time —— GROUP D Volgograd, Volgograd Arena

NIGERIA Iceland 0—2 Nigeria

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Hopes were high in captain Aron Einar Gunnarsson’s hometown of Akureyri for a matchup against the Super Eagles of Nigeria. Agony spread on people’s faces, however, as star player Gylfi Sigurðsson missed a crucial penalty.

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Iceland Review

26 JUN 2018 – 21:00 Local time —— GROUP D Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Arena

CROATIA Iceland 1—2 Croatia

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All eyes were firmly focused on the screen for Iceland’s final match. A Blönduós gas station bereft of customers, except for a sole enthusiastic viewer, allowed employees to catch a glimpse of the outing.

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Iceland Review

The Varangians were a band of Vikings who roamed the Volga and the surrounding areas from the 9th to the 11th century.

Some 900 years later, another batch of Norse visitors showed up en masse.

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Iceland Review

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F A L C O Iceland Review

A day in the life of a gyrfalcon researcher

RUSTIC O L U S Words by Kjartan ร orbjรถrnsson

Photography by Golli

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“The gyrfalcon’s whole life revolves around the ptarmigan,” ornithologist Ólafur Nielsen tells me as I sit in the back of his pickup truck. We’re navigating a trail through spiky black lava in the northeast on the longest day of the year. At his side is his son and namesake, Ólafur Nielsen Junior, known as Óli to distinguish him from his father.

He’s been accompanying his father on his falcon trips since he was 10 years old and can’t imagine a summer without them. In order to get to follow the father-son duo on their trip for a day, I had to apply for a special permit from the Environment Agency of Iceland, months in advance. The purpose of our trip is to visit two or three gyrfalcon nests to mark and measure the nestlings. Even approaching gyrfalcon nests in Iceland is illegal and only a few researchers and scientists are exempted. Ólafur is one of Iceland’s most notable falcon scholars.

“I’ve always been interested in birds. As a teenager, I became enamoured with the gyrfalcon and decided to make ornithology my life’s work,” Ólafur tells me.

In 1994, after studying the gyrfalcon and the ptarmigan at the University of Iceland and Cornell in the US, Ólafur started working with the Icelandic Institute of Natural History, monitoring ptarmigan numbers, and has been studying them ever since. Ólafur’s research area in the northeast is around 5 300km 2 and has 84 falcon nests, although the number of falcons varies.

Earlier this year Ólafur visited the area to check how many nests were inhabited. This is the second visit of the summer and it’s a time-consuming one. Ólafur parks the jeep in a small valley between two hills. He and his son grab the equipment and we take off. After about 20 minutes’ walk over the hills, we reach a 20m high cliff and immediately hear the shrill call of the gyrfalcon. “She sees us right away,” says Ólafur as we see a falcon zoom towards us. She wants to scare us away.

The Ólafurs get to work. Óli attaches a line to the cliff and Ólafur is lowered towards the nest. He takes the nestlings one by one out of the nest and slowly sends the flightless birds to his son in a cardboard box. The birds lie still on the grass at the bottom off the cliff and stare at their surroundings.

For 38 years, Ólafur has been visiting the gyrfalcons’ territory, marking the birds. “I’ve marked more than a thousand gyrfalcon chicks. We want to follow the birds’

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travels, estimate their life expectancy, and learn where they nest. When I was studying, I spent three months a year monitoring them but now it’s about 4-5 weeks every summer.” Two metal rings with clearly visible letters are put around the ankles of each bird, they’re weighed, and their feathers and bones measured. Everything is meticulously documented. Finally, Ólafur goes down the cliff again, returning the baby gyrfalcons to their nest.

A research project like this isn’t finished in the course of one summer. The number of birds within species varies wildly between years and for the gyrfalcons to flourish, the ptarmigan numbers have to be up as well. These two species of birds are completely intertwined so researching gyrfalcons is impossible without researching ptarmigans and vice versa. For Ólafur’s research to be definitive, he needs to devote his whole academic career to this one project. “I studied the ptarmigan and the gyrfalcon for six years in university but that’s nowhere near enough time. The numbers of birds within the species rises and falls over the course of 10-12 years and for definitive results, you need to monitor at least three of these cycles,” Ólafur tells me. His studies had just begun when he left school, in fact, he’s still working on his graduating research.

When asked if how he conducts his research isn’t dangerous, Ólafur admits that gathering information up and down rocky cliffs certainly has its perils. “I once fell and almost killed myself, as a teenager. After that, I learned to use lines and get lowered down to the nests instead of climbing. We try to be as safe as possible and I’m never alone.” Ólafur clears leftover food from the nest to see what the falcons have been eating. It’s mostly ptarmigan bones. Despite having been researching nests like this for decades, Ólafur is genuinely interested in each new visit. “It’s an obsession of mine and I’ll keep doing this as long as my health and abilities will allow. It’s physically demanding but it gives my life fulfillment. It’s so much more than a job.” If the gyrfalcon’s life revolves around the ptarmigan, Ólafur’s life has come to revolve around both of them.

As we leave, the nest is a little bit cleaner and the soon-to-be-grown gyrfalcons sport shiny metal rings around their legs. Otherwise, everything is the same as when we arrived.

Iceland Review

“The gyrfalcon’s whole life revolves around the ptarmigan.”

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The gyrfalcon is a powerful hunting bird, the largest of all falcon species, and can be taught to hunt very large birds, such as geese, herons, and cranes. In the Middle East, where falconry remains a popular sport, a gyrfalcon is a status symbol, even though the birds don’t handle heat very well.

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Iceland Review

There appear to be more gyrfalcon chicks and eggs in Iceland this spring than at any time since the early 1980s.

Gyrfalcon egg theft has been a problem, but newly-installed security cameras have been successful at keeping thieves at bay.

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At the height of gyrfalcon export in the 17th century, more than 200 birds were exported each year.

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Iceland’s history of falcon export 9th century — Shortly after Iceland was settled, early Icelanders started exporting live gyrfalcons for hunting games.

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17th century — The Danish king claimed the falcon as his property and organised export began. Birds would be caught and tamed in the winter in Iceland. In the spring, the birds were sorted and sent to Copenhagen on a special falcon ship.

19th century — The organised export had stopped but the gyrfalcon still wasn’t protected. The birds were shot and stuffed or their eggs were collected and sold abroad.

1950 — Gyrfalcons are finally protected in Iceland. Unfortunately, to this day, 25% of birds that are found dead have been shot at.

1970 — Gyrfalcons are in danger again as nest thieves start arriving from Europe. At first, it was mostly newly hatched birds that were stolen but later, eggs were stolen and taken to Europe, where the birds were raised, tamed and sold.

Iceland Review

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LIGHTS, Words by Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir

CAMERA, Photography by Golli

ACTIVISM 62

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Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir is one of the nation’s most beloved actors. Some of the previous roles she’s known for have been comedic, even clownish (her turn as Barbara the clown was beloved by an entire generation of Icelandic children). Recently, however, it is her role as an environmental terrorist that has gained her some well-deserved attention. The role is another fruitful partnership with frequent collaborator director Benedikt Erlingsson, her partner in Ormstunga, a comedy play based on one of the Icelandic sagas, her director in Of Horses and Men and most recently, Woman at War.

The role of a lifetime In Woman at War, Halldóra is an environmental terrorist, working on sabotaging electricity lines in the highlands. It involved a lot of running, over mountains, across rivers and through so much moss (and running in moss ain’t easy). “It was very demanding. I was at every day of shooting except for two. When I was done with the last running scene, I was very happy.” Halldóra tells me. “I had to prepare myself physically because I know that if you’re running in front of a camera, you have to be able to do it eight times. You have to be prepared for things to go wrong. I never had to do it eight times, but I had to be physically fit enough to be able to do it eight times.”

The Icelandic film industry is having a moment these days, with plenty of quality films being produced. “And Breathe Normally was great and I loved The Swan as well, the poetry that Ása [Hjörleifsdóttir, director] uses. It’s such a beautiful film.” Halldóra enthusiastically tells me. While there are great films being made, it’s still difficult for an Icelandic actor who wants to focus on film acting. “I think there are some very exciting opportunities for filmmakers but I as an actor never know when I’ll get the call. I can never say that I am going to be a film actor. Very few actors can say that, maybe only Ólafur Darri [Ólafsson, of Trapped fame] and Jóhannes Haukur [Jóhannesson, who appeared in Game of Thrones]. They have enough work in other countries.

Them and Hera [Hilmar] recently. I love seeing how well she’s doing.” In light of the dearth of film roles in Iceland, Halldóra is pleased with her starring role in Woman at War. “For me, it’s a once in a lifetime role.

It’s so much fun to do that at some point in my life.

And now it’s here, my big role.” Even though the roles are few, Halldóra isn’t certain it will be her last big film role. “You never know what happens, I might get another call.”

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Collaboration is key In the movie, Halldóra plays not only the leading role but also the main supporting role of her own sister. It’s one of her bigger roles but she’s felt good about working with Benedikt. “It’s very easy for us to work together,” Halldóra says about Benedikt.

“We’re free with each other. I’ll scream at him and he’ll get tired of me, you know how it is. But we work everything out on the spot. We never have a falling out.” Halldóra has been in several theatre productions and films with Benedikt, such as his acclaimed film Of Horses and Men and a two-man staging of Ormstunga, which was a smashing success and toured Iceland and Scandinavia for four years. In fact, their collaboration goes back longer than you might expect, they first met acting in the National Theatre of Iceland at ages 11 and 10. “We’ve been like brother and sister,” Halldóra tells me as she recounts the highlights of their joint projects. “We know how to “What will most quickly halt work together. But we had to global warming is some sort of fine tune our work for this film activism, peaceful activism, since it’s such a big role.” where no physical harm is done.”

Fighting for the future Halldóra’s character is very passionate about protecting the environment, so passionate that she turns to sabotage. The idea seems far-fetched, but it actually has some real-life inspiration. “[Benedikt], an old-school enemy of whaling who chained himself to a whaling boat in his youth, he has that activism in his blood. He thought that this was the only thing he could do. He told me years ago, that if he were to disappear, it was because he was in hiding, probably in connection to the power lines to the Straumsvík aluminium smelter being cut.” Halldóra herself is no less passionate about protecting the environment. “We have very little time to reverse the damage we’ve done, the consumption and the lifestyle we’ve gotten used to that is making our carbon footprint so big. Global warming is a very dangerous thing. In Iceland, we must be on guard against big industry, making sure they don’t keep making more power plants, producing cheap electricity to power factories and the consumption-driven society we live in.” While she hasn’t been arrested yet, Halldóra is adamant that activism is necessary for progress. “What will most quickly halt global warming is some sort of activism, peaceful activism, where no physical harm is done. Just like strikes and workers’ unions are what heightened social awareness and created the welfare society we enjoy today. The right to strike, which is a form of sabotage or activism against an authority or the wealthy, it’s almost the only weapon people have.”

Iceland Review

How much can you sacrifice?

The external struggle in the movie is between Halldóra’s character and the authorities, but perhaps the most central struggle in She walked on sheepskin the film is the internal one. shoes to Reykjavík to stop Halldóra’s character finds out people building a power that she is becoming a mother plant over the waterfall. and has to choose between her family and her fight. Benedikt himself never did disappear either. “He became a family man, with three children and a wife. He personally experienced this feeling that you can’t do something like this, this type of activism against other people’s property, that means jail time, when you’ve made the decision to become a parent. So he personally has to fight this internal fight.” Instead, he did what he could do: made a movie.

Halldóra herself has also had to figure out her fight for a better world. “I’ve been working with

UNICEF myself, have made visits to places in Africa and Haiti and looked into the most terrible situations I’ve ever seen people in. It’s hard not to wonder what right I have, a person from this welfare society in the north, to come to their town, take photos and make short films about people living in poverty.” For Halldóra, the solution is to work locally. “I’ve figured out that my place, as a privileged person with the education and the chance to change the world, is to make sure Iceland becomes a utopia. I think it’s our duty as people, as Icelanders, to make a utopian society. They who have education and aren’t hungry, they have the opportunity to do what a person with fewer opportunities in life can’t. In order to lift them up, we need to become role models. We can’t just be satisfied with having the greenest energy in the world, we have to strive to be better. We have to strive towards utopia. Because we have the chance. We can’t just stop.”

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It starts at home Halldóra has also made changes in her life, in an attempt to make her household more efficient and less wasteful. “We went through our habits, how we shopped, used electricity and the carbon footprint behind every product we used.” The results were a pleasant surprise. “I thought this would be expensive, thought how expensive it would be to buy organic, choose better products at the store and so on but in the end, our expenses went down 30%. We started using electricity, heat and gas more wisely.

There was so much waste and just by becoming aware, we started noticing it.” The benefits were not only economic but personal as well. “I’ve made steps to become more environmentally aware years ago, so I feel that I can live up to the film we’ve made.”

For Halldóra, it’s important to think long-term about how we use the nature around us. “Just look at Gullfoss, and Sigríður í Brattholti’s fight to protect it.

She walked on sheepskin shoes to Reykjavík to stop people building a power plant over the waterfall. Now it’s our main tourist attraction. We have to think at least 30 years ahead and figure out where we’re being greedy.”

The next power plant to be built is the controversial Hvalárvirkjun. “You can’t help crying if this is going to happen. You cry over having to have this conversation once again.” Halldóra feels that the argument for building the power plant could also be used against it.

“The argument was that nobody went there, there was no tourism there. But that’s the most amazing thing about that place, nobody goes there. It’s completely untouched and there aren’t that many areas like that left in the world. That’s something we need to protect.”

For Halldóra, the profit from the power plant does not come close to matching what we will lose. “For so little reward. It’s just money and it’s not even going into the pockets of the people who live there.”

Heroic women Even though Benedikt had this idea, the activist in the film is female. According to Halldóra, “It’s simply more interesting that it’s a woman than a man, our community wants to see women do heroic things. In our daily lives, heroic things are equally done by women and men, but producers usually put men in the role of the hero. In our lives, women are

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every bit as much activists as men.” Even though the character is female, she doesn’t see her struggles as being specifically female. “The longing to become a parent is not just a female longing, it’s a human longing. People have asked me about this, like having a child is a specifically female wish, but my husband wanted to have a child just as much as I did. It’s not a female feeling to want to be a parent.” For Halldóra, every human should be able to see themselves in the movie. “People take their own journey and both men and women can see themselves in Halla’s shoes.”

As I ask Halldóra about women in the entertainment industry, she tells me that she only recently realised there was an imbalance. “I have a theory that the generation before me was filled with strong women, Redstockings, who tore off their bras and founded the Women’s Party.” The Redstockings were an Icelandic feminist movement and the party took seats both in parliament and the city council.

“They were our mothers and big sisters and they were so powerful. We looked at them and my generation thought we were done. We thought equality was achieved and there was nothing more to fight for.”

Halldóra says that discovering gendered injustice was a nasty shock. “We were caught off guard. I was about thirty when I first realised that I wasn’t getting offered the same pay as the guys. I just thought it was really weird, we’d gone to the same schools and done similar things, but then guys around me were getting much better offers than me.” The misogyny wasn’t as overt or violent as it had been but that just made it so much harder to fight. “That’s what I felt was the most interesting thing about the #metoo campaign was all the mundane, everyday stories. You can deal with violence, fight it, but underlying culture, that’s an invisible enemy.”

For the past year or two, women have been very visible in the film industry, directing and starring in some of the most acclaimed Icelandic films. Halldóra thinks the future for women in film is exciting. “I think our time is just getting started. I think the future will hold many more scripts where the president is a woman, the CEO of the company is a woman, the head of the secret service is a woman, the bully is a woman and the psychopath is a woman. It takes two to five years to write a good script so I think these stories are coming.”

Iceland Review

Photo by Jimmy Salinas

In Woman at War, Halldรณra plays Halla, an environmental activist, as well as her own sister.

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“You never know what happens, I might get another call.�

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RAGNHEIÐUR, Words by Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir

Illustrations by Helga Páley Friðþjófsdóttir

THE BISHOP’S Some characters and events in history are so memorable that their stories have been told and retold many times over. Facts become stories and stories become legends and even though the only people that know the true events are long gone, they still hold a place in people’s hearts. For Icelanders, one such story is the story of Ragnheiður Brynjólfsdóttir, the Bishop’s daughter. It has captured the hearts and minds of Icelanders throughout generations, leaving them wondering to this day about the feelings and motives that drove her tumultuous life.

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Once upon a time…

Ragnheiður was the daughter of Brynjólfur Sveinsson, Bishop of Skálholt and one of the richest men in 17th-century Iceland. Their bloodline was a rich tapestry of some of the most important families of Iceland at the time. In addition to money and breeding, Brynjólfur was an educated man and considered one of Iceland’s wisest. When he was ordained bishop, he likely became the most powerful man in Iceland. In addition to Brynjólfur’s wisdom and wealth, he was considered a moral and ethical man and his legacy is such that to this day, his face adorns the ISK 1 000 note. His position afforded him and his family a considerable amount of privilege but also kept them under close scrutiny.

When his oldest daughter Ragnheiður was born in 1641, Brynjólfur was over the moon with joy. He and his wife would go on to have six more children, five of which died in infancy. Ragnheiður, the eldest, was doted upon.

According to contemporary sources, she was sharp, sensible and a promising young woman. She was her father’s favourite and so dear to her cousin, poet Hallgrímur Pétursson, that he sent her a handwritten manuscript of his Psalms of Passion, one of Iceland’s most revered pieces of literature. He did, however, also attach a note that encouraged the young woman to pay less attention to the temptations of this world and worry more about the rewards in the next one.

Love is in the a(ffa)ir Ragnheiður had the best education a woman could get at the time, but it was there that her problems began.

They had a face and a name: the Reverend Daði Halldórsson, her private tutor, five years her senior. Daði was the son of the Bishop’s close friend and according to contemporary descriptions, a charming and intelligent man. Daði was so charming, in fact, that he impregnated a servant girl at the school, at a time when wedlock was a prerequisite for an honourable childbirth. Despite his missteps, Daði remained in the Bishop’s good graces until rumours began to circulate that he was giving the Bishop’s daughter a little more than an education.

Ragnheiður was as privileged as unmarried women could be at the time, but her high social standing meant that she was under more scrutiny than women of lesser birth.

A reverend named Sigurður Torfason was also in trouble for a love affair: he had a baby on the way, without a ring on his finger. Sigurður was afraid that the Bishop would kick him out of the clergy so in a desperate attempt to save himself, he attacked Brynjólfur’s morality. If Brynjólfur kept ignoring the rumours of his daughter’s affair, Sigurður claimed, he himself should be off the hook as well. Brynjólfur was in a difficult situation but decided to call Sigurður’s bluff and turn the spotlight on his daughter. In 1661, when Ragnheiður was only 19 years old, she was forced by her father to swear an oath in front of

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witnesses that she was still a virgin. The oath was not a unique event, a few other women of her time were forced to do the same, but it was humiliating nonetheless.

Crime and punishment The oath could have been the end of it, if it weren’t for the fact that nine months later, Ragnheiður had a son and admitted that Daði was the father. Bishop Brynjólfur was furious and stripped Daði of his right to serve as a minister, as well as demanding of Daði and his family more money than would likely have been his inheritance.

If Daði’s punishment seemed harsh, it was nothing compared to what Ragnheiður had to go through. To pay for her crime and false oath, she was required to perform an absolution ceremony at the Skálholt cathedral, where her father was bishop and where she herself had grown up. She was humiliated in front of God and men, and the scandal was the talk of the whole country.

For her absolution, Ragnheiður had to enter the church in front of the whole congregation and strip down to the waist. She then kneeled, raised her hands, and confessed to a list of her sins and misdeeds as it was read to her. She would stay in this position for the entire ceremony before signing a document stating she would be stripped of all inheritance unless she showed remorse and turned from her sinful ways. By signing, she agreed to practice Christian diligence with solemnity and fear of God, and beware of laziness and frivolities. If she were ever to repeat her offence or behave in an unladylike manner, she would forfeit her absolution and be lost forever in the eyes of society and God. A fate worthy of a Greek tragedy Ragnheiður’s son was taken from her to be raised elsewhere. She never saw him or Daði again, and a year after her absolution, she died of plague, only 21 years old. At her funeral, a new psalm by her friend, poet Hallgrímur Pétursson, was performed. Allt eins og blómstrið eina (Much Like a Lonely Flower) deals with accepting death as a part of life and not being afraid when it comes.

To this day, it is sung at almost every Icelandic funeral.

While Ragnheiður’s story had come to an end, her father’s had just begun. Her only surviving brother died a few years later, leaving Bishop Brynjólfur, the richest man in Iceland, without an heir. At this point, Brynjólfur sent for Þórður, the son of the late Ragnheiður, with the intention of raising his illegitimate grandson as his heir. Þórður soon became the apple of his grandfather’s eye but in a cruel twist of fate worthy of a Greek tragedy, he died at the age of 11. Brynjólfur, who was widowed by then, with all his money, power, and wisdom, was nevertheless alone.

Reading and rereading The tragic story of young Ragnheiður and her father’s rigid morals have echoed in Icelandic culture

Iceland Review

I, Ragnheiður Brynjólfsdóttir, place my hand on the holy book and swear to God almighty that I am at this moment a virgin, untouched by men and carnal acts, just as I was when I first entered this world from my mother’s womb. So help me God in his mercy as I swear this, but may He punish me if I lie.

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ever since. While there is written evidence of many of these events, including Brynjólfur’s own diary, nothing is known for sure about Ragnheiður’s thoughts on the matter. As time passed, the story continued to intrigue artists and audiences alike. Many have tried to interpret Ragnheiður’s feelings throughout the years, in various dramatisations of the story. Most often she is portrayed as a proud sufferer, a woman who stood by her strengths as well as her faults, was punished for love, and died of a broken heart.

Counting the days An interesting interpretation of Ragnheiður’s story comes from Guðmundur Kamban, author of the historical novel Skálholt, detailing the events. In his eyes, Ragnheiður was an exemplary woman, if a little too preoccupied with the pleasures of this world rather than the next. Her love for Daði he considers pure and even claims that Daði himself was nobler than his contemporaries would allow. Most notably, armed with the knowledge of mathematics and human biology, Guðmundur calculates that since the illegitimate son wasn’t born until just about nine months after Ragnheiður’s oath of chastity, there’s a chance that she could have been telling the truth. In the days leading up to the oath-taking, Guðmundur argues, people must have been keeping an eye on the lovebirds, thus eliminating the chance of conception. According to Guðmundur, the proud Ragnheiður would have been so indignant after the forced oath-taking that she would allow herself the night of passion she had longed for and had been wrongly accused of. It’s a reach, for sure, but you can’t help but admire the lengths to which Guðmundur will go to justify his interpretation of Ragnheiður’s character.

Guðmundur’s version of events was the dominant

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historical explanation for a long time, and for decades, people debated whether or not Ragnheiður had sworn a false oath. In 1973, a book was published claiming that Ragnheiður had appeared to a psychic and admitted that the oath was false, that she had indeed lost her virginity before that day. A 2015 operatic staging of Ragnheiður’s story perhaps unsurprisingly leaned into the nobly tragic narrative of Guðmundur Kamban and proved massively popular with Icelanders. The figure of Ragnheiður as a proud and strong-willed yet noble epitome of Icelandic womanhood resonated with the nation, fitting a popular archetype including characters such as Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir from Laxdæla Saga and Snæfríður Íslandssól from Halldór Laxness’ Iceland’s Bell.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman Every fictionalised adaptation of Ragnheiður’s story gives her a new character and although she is most often beloved and revered, she was at one time a person of flesh and blood. Most recently, feminist readings of Ragnheiður’s story have dismissed the question of the veracity of her oath, noting instead the injustice of her whole situation. According to them, the tragedy is not in the false accusations but that there were accusations to begin with. Not to mention the fact that Daði was five years her senior, in a position of power, and already had a child out of wedlock. If it wasn’t for her father and his political situation, Ragnheiður could have become just a footnote in history, much like Daði’s other child’s mother.

The story of Ragnheiður is a compelling one and it’s easy to see why people have found the need to dramatise it. But at the heart of this story is a 19-year-old girl, thrown into the spotlight because of her family and her father’s position, unjustly humiliated and ridiculed by society for her mistakes.

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RESPECTING

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Words by Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir

Photos by Áslaug Snorradóttir

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Around 100 types of vegetables and herbs are grown around the farm.

Iceland famously has almost no forests. In most places that is. In the east of Iceland, you could almost imagine that you’re in another climate, especially if you visit Vallanes farm. On the farm, run by Eymundur Magnússon and his wife Eygló Björk Ólafsdóttir, mature forests meet fields of organic barley, rapeseed, salad greens, and other vegetables. It’s one of the first organic farms in Iceland and not a lot of people believed in Eymundur’s vision when he first abandoned the more traditional dairy farming. Today, the whole area has been transformed by Eymundur’s green thumbs. Recently, Eymundur accepted an award from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, founded by Slow Food, for planting trees, forests and shelterbelts, thereby creating favourable conditions for sustainable agriculture in an otherwise inhospitable landscape.

The lush green forest that now covers the area hasn’t always been here. “I moved to Vallanes in 1979 and the land hadn’t been farmed for about 20 years. It was wilderness,” Eymundur tells me. At first, he was a dairy

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farmer but in 1983, he started planting trees in an effort to shield the land from the wind. The first trees were excess plants from the Hallormstaðaskógur forest, unusable because of appearance flaws. By now, it’s a lively-looking forest, providing a welcome respite from the winds. “I always say that people shouldn’t complain about the weather, just do something to change it,” Eymundur says with a laugh. The award is intended to encourage biodiversity and sustainability in farming. “The Slow Food organisation wants to counteract the uniformity and homogeneity of factory farming. By planting the forest, birdlife in the area immediately grew more vibrant and diverse.”

In 1989, Eymundur stopped breeding cows for dairy, and started growing organic grains and vegetables. At first, people rolled their eyes at his ideas but most of them have come around since seeing Eymundur’s success. Now, he and his wife grow and forage around 100 different types of vegetables and herbs, rapeseed oil, wheat and barley. Based on these ingredients the cou-

Iceland Review

ple has built a specialty food line under the brand Móðir Jörð (Mother Earth) where the key ingredient is always grown at the farm. Some of their products are sold in grocery stores around the country, but as tourism in Iceland has increased, Eymundur and Eygló sell most of the fresh vegetables to restaurants. They also have had the help of chefs who’ve introduced new dishes to the Icelandic palate, using their products that used to be unfamiliar. Byggotto (or barleyotto) has become a popular meal accompaniment – it’s a portmanteau of risotto and bygg, the Icelandic word for barley.

According to Eymundur, you can grow almost anything in Iceland. In fact, organic farming is easier here than in many other countries because the lack of bugs and insects minimises need for pesticides. For the few bugs and pests that do occur, Eymundur simply uses ‘stinky water,’ made from all-natural ingredients such as nettle and northern dock, to repel them. Eymundur tells me that people are sometimes afraid of trying to grow things here. “When I wanted to start growing rapeseed

for oil in 2005, people told me that it would never work, oil seeds wouldn’t grow here. Now there are at least three other farmers growing it and one of Vallanes’s most popular products is cold-pressed rapeseed oil.”

But Eymundur has run into some problems growing produce in Iceland as well, although they don’t stem from the cold weather. “Some types of salad greens can’t handle the 24-hour sunlight in the summer, it messes with their natural rhythm.”

For Eymundur, organic farming is what makes the most sense. “You’re working with nature, not forcing it to do what you want with pesticides and fertiliser. After working with the land like this for years, the soil becomes more fertile, it has more to give.” Eymundur and his wife are dedicated to spreading the love of organic farming, regularly taking on volunteers from WWOOF and interns who want to learn more about their style of farming and offering accommodation for people who want to stay there, eating breakfast grown at the farm.

“It’s not just work, enjoying the land is part of our goal.

For example, we’ve built paths through the forests we’ve grown. For me, walking in the forest is healing.”

Originally, the trees were planted to shield the land from the winds. “I like to say that I’ve moved Vallanes a little closer to the equator by growing this forest,” Eymundur says with a smile. As the years have gone by, the forest has grown so much that it now produces wood.

In fact, the on-site store is housed in a building built almost entirely from aspen grown at Vallanes, including the furniture. “It’s the first wood grown in Iceland to get certification as load-carrying wood. The Aspen House is now the heart of our farm, where we offer field-to-table vegetarian meals to guests visiting the farm,” Eymundur tells me. Clearly, there aren’t limits to what you can do if you think outside the box.

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The Aspen House is surrounded by the recently created forest.

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HELPING 86

THE

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WORLD

Words by Tinna Eiríksdóttir Photography by Golli

BREATHE

Apart from marshes and moors, the definition of “wetland” applies to rivers, lakes, tidewaters, floodplains, mudflats and beaches to a depth of 6m. For centuries after Iceland’s settlement, the moorlands were mined for peat and bog iron, but even though they were being harvested, they got to stay the way nature intended them to… wet.

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The process of wetland restoration is quite simple. All you have to do is refill the ditches.

Icelandic vegetation Iceland is part of the arctic tundra biome, which means animals and vegetation must be adapted to low temperatures and have a short growing season. In areas that belong to the tundra (tundra meaning uplands or treeless mountain tract), vegetation is mostly composed of mosses, grasses and dwarf shrubs. The arctic tundra contains areas of stark landscape, is frozen most of the year and is usually covered in marshes and moorland, but in Iceland peatland covers about 30-40% of vegetated land.

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Iceland’s nature is what attracts travellers from all over the world, and a large part of the country’s GDP comes from either natural resources or tourism. Despite the environment’s importance for Iceland, much like in the rest of the world, it’s under threat. One of the biggest natural conservation projects in Iceland is not to ban the use of plastics or battle the burning of fossil fuels, it’s preserving wetlands.

Even among Icelanders, the importance of wetlands is not widely understood. Aside from farmers, most people are only dimly aware that there used to be a lot of ditches. Now, they’re starting to fill these up again and the reason is mostly a mystery. Very few give wetlands any attention at all, but this should change, because their restoration might be the keystone in the fight against climate change.

What are wetlands and why are they in danger?

For a long time, wetlands were an underestimated part of the Icelandic ecosystem, but times are changing.

People are starting to realise that wetlands are an indispensable water resource and serve a significant ecological purpose. Water is necessary for life to thrive and wetlands are home to a variety of species, ranging from plants to small animals, which depend on the conditions provided by wetlands for survival. Amongst those are birds – just over 90% of Icelandic breeding birds rely, to some extent, on wetlands.

In the 1930s, someone got the idea to drain wetlands and turn them into hayfields. Moorland vegetation is not suitable for grazing, so there seemed to be opportunities in draining wetlands, both for growing crops and for keeping livestock. Agriculture laws from 1923 stated that the Icelandic government should support the drainage of wetlands in the form of “drainage grants,” meaning that in exchange for draining an area of land and creating a hayfield to increase crops, the government paid farmers a certain amount. This incentive worked wonders and farmers started digging ditches to drain wetlands like they were getting paid to do it, because, well, they got paid to do it.

It is estimated that in the 20th century around 35 000km (22 000mi) of ditches were dug in Iceland (to put that in context, the Earth’s circumference is approximately 40 000km or 25 000mi). This means a lot of disturbed and dried-up wetlands. But what’s wrong with digging ditches if you get more arable farmland? Well, a lot.

Starving wildlife is no laughing matter Wetlands are a habitat for a variety of plant and animal species which are all substantially affected by lowering water levels. Survival of these animal species is endangered, the vegetation changes, and it may take years to restore the wetlands once the balance is off.

Aside from the importance of wetlands for wildlife and vegetation, they store carbon. By digging a ditch and

drying out wetlands, carbon is subjected to oxygen. It oxidises, forming greenhouse gasses (GHGs), like methane, nitrous oxide – better known as laughing gas – and carbon dioxide. Draining wetlands releases these gasses into the atmosphere, and despite all the laughing gas, no-one is laughing. In recent years, emission numbers in general have been increasing (between the years 1990 and 2015 the increase was almost 30%) and about 70% of the annual GHG emissions in Iceland comes from wetlands alone.

According to Sunna Áskelsdóttir, project manager for the restoration of wetlands for the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI), it’s very important that we work towards restoring wetlands. “It’s important to counterbalance the increase in GHGs as well as to help the island’s ecosystems to tackle climate change.

Healthy ecosystems are more capable to resist environmental threats than disturbed ecosystems,” Sunna says. “Wetlands have many different functions,” Sunna points out, “and ecosystems are better equipped to serve their purpose if they are in a good, natural state.”

Passing gas for hundreds of years Dried-up wetlands will continue to deteriorate and as long as there’s any organic material in them that can degrade and rot, they will continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to Sunna, that could take about 250-300 years, sometimes less but sometimes even more, considering the average thickness of moors. Sunna also points out that the more time passes from the drainage of wetlands, the harder it is to restore them and regain their former activity. A great part of the Icelandic wetlands has been drained and in South Iceland, it is estimated that as little as 3% of the wetlands are undisturbed.

To summarise: without restored wetlands the moorlands will continue to release GHGs into the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Species density will continue to decrease, and the drained wetlands and their disturbed ecosystem will not be able to resist the impending effects of climate change as well as they would in their natural, undisturbed state. We have a lot to gain from restoring wetlands. Without them, we might liken the ecosystem to a human being missing a lung.

What were they thinking?

In 1970, Halldór Laxness wrote an article that was published in newspaper Morgunblaðið called “Hernaðurinn gegn landinu” (“Warfare Against the Land”).

In this article he writes how absurd it is that the government supports draining wetlands by handing out grants.

He points out that all over the country ditches were dug without any intention of creating hayfields. People were simply taking advantage of the situation and digging in exchange for money.

In the early 20th century, much less was known about

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the effect humans had on nature. Whether it was burying toxic waste in the ground or pouring chemicals into oceans and lakes, few gave it any thought where it would all go. Out of sight, out of mind. In that context digging a few thousand kilometres of ditches was not viewed as a bad move. All these years later, we know better. We know that burying toxic waste or pouring chemicals into oceans is dangerous, and we’re starting to realise that wetlands are more than just muddy fields. We know now that by digging ditches we are making things worse.

Laxness suggested that perhaps it was time to start paying people to fill up the ditches that cut through the landscape and conserve the moorlands. Almost 50 years later, we got the memo and now, the conservation and restoration of the Icelandic wetlands is one of the government’s main priorities. So, how are they going to do it?

If it’s broken, let’s fix it The process of wetland restoration is quite simple and viable. All you have to do is refill the ditches. Wetlands are restored by heightening water levels and that is done by blocking the drainage system. Dams can be

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made from a variety of materials, for example peat, rocks or any other material that suits the environment.

Sometimes the material dug from the ditch is still there and can be used to fill it back up. The most important thing is to build dams that can withstand the strain of floods. Once the wetland is restored, it stops the release of GHGs for good.

The Icelandic government is on a mission to become carbon neutral by 2040 and restoring wetlands is a big part of reaching that goal. The Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources commissioned SCSI to restore them and according to Sunna the project is going well. To begin with, they gave advice to landowners on how to restore wetlands and handed out grants to those who wanted to partake in the project, and the project has developed since. “Last year, it was decided to focus on monitoring wetlands and their response to rewetting, assessing which areas are suitable for restoration and prioritising those areas as well,” Sunna says.

The SCSI is working on helping landowners to restore wetlands and just as Laxness suggested, the landowners get grants for the cost of the project if they are willing to participate. There are approximately 4 200km 2 of dis-

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turbed wetlands in Iceland, but not all those areas will be restored. Sunna points out that modern Icelandic agriculture depends on drained wetlands to some extent, so it isn’t realistic to expect all wetlands to be restored.

However, there is only about 570km 2 used for agriculture, so there is a lot of land that is in little or no use and that has full potential to be restored. Its restoration is just a matter of time.

The Wetlands Fund The public is becoming more aware of the problems that drainage brings. In recent years, many have become more environmentally conscious and as we start experiencing the effects of climate change in our day-to-day life, we are perhaps realising that we must do something before it’s too late. Earlier this year, The Wetlands Fund was established. The fund is a nonprofit organisation whose aim is to contribute to the restoration of wetlands.

The Wetlands Fund project has been well received and has been granted governmental funding. The project also got the national soccer team onboard when the Football Association of Iceland agreed to neutralise the

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emission carbon during the football team’s journey to the World Cup in Russia. IKEA has also recently signed a contract with the fund and has agreed to co-operate with them towards neutralising carbon in its operation in Iceland. These days, the project is being introduced to landowners, farmers and municipalities, and it’s already off to a good start. Ásbjörn Björgvinsson, the managing director of The Wetlands Fund, says that the first wetlands restoration project will start this year as soon as nesting season is over. It was recently reported that their first project will take place in Fjarðabyggð in East Iceland.

According to Ásbjörn, restoration is without a doubt the most important and simplest measure to take against climate change, because with every kilometres of ditches that are refilled, release of GHGs is permanently stopped. “The restoration of wetlands is a community project that everyone must participate in,” he says. “We must contribute what we can, so that future generations can enjoy the same quality of land and air that our forefathers did.” There is no planet B, so we better try to fix this one.

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THE HUNT FOR THE

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PERFECT

Words & Portrait by Golli Photos by Einar Guðmann, Gyða Henningsdóttir

In a small but cosy camper van on a parking lot in Hellissandur, someone is making coffee. The sun breaks through the clouds for the first time in a few days and illuminates the magical Snæfellsjökull glacier. There could be some beautiful light tonight.

Einar Guðmann, Gyða Henningsdóttir, and their dog Kútur greet me warmly. They’ve been taking it easy today, not hurrying out of bed because during the summer season they mostly work at night, when the light is prettiest.

Einar and Gyða met in their hometown of Akureyri in 2005 and quickly started working together on their joint interest: photography. “We dove into it together,” says Einar. “For the first year we were energetic enthusiasts but we soon decided to do this for real.” Einar had worked at the Environment Agency of Iceland for 14 years but resigned four years ago to focus on photography. Gyða took the same step two years later. Since then, the pair has made a living from nature photography.

“It feels a little like you never have to show up for work,” Einar says with a smile when asked about making his hobby his work. “Really, we work in the tourism industry. There’s a great need for beautiful promotional photos in that industry and many companies come to us. Originally, they might have heard that we have many great bird photos but our main source of income is landscape photos.” They travel around the country year-round to take photos, though summer is their busiest season. Last year, the two spent 78 nights in their car. “We try to split up our trips. Our goal this summer is to come home more often and take shorter trips. We’ve been spending two weeks or up to a month on each trip.” Their winter trips aren’t as long, simply because of the weather, but their camper van is equipped with studded winter tires and can be used year-round. “We’ve woken up in snowdrifts up to 70cm (28in) deep with everything frozen,” says Gyða.

SHOT

During the height of summer, Einar and Gyða drive between different parts of the country looking for the best light. Earlier this week, they were in the east of Iceland but now, they’re at the westernmost part of Snæfellsnes peninsula, in the west. Einar says that they always take their time to get the conditions they’re looking for. “We try to be in one place until the light is as we want it. On this trip, we’re on our fourth day trying to get a certain waterfall in a certain light.

It’s been cloudy and raining heavily but tonight, there should be just the right light for us to get a photo with the glacier in the background. They agree that it can be stressful when things aren’t going well and their moods are affected by their work. “We’ve made some scientific experiments and found out that getting a good photo will keep you happy for at least 48 hours,” Einar says as Gyða grins.

“Yes!” Gyða exclaims when I ask if there’s competition between the couple about who gets the best photos each time. “The competition’s fierce,” Einar adds.

“We usually joke that we’re competing for who gets the photo of the day.” “We live in this little space all summer so we need to keep each other happy.” Gyða adds. “We even try to find motifs for each other if the other person missed something,” says Einar. Despite the competition, it looks easy for the couple to be happy for each other and encourage each other.

One year ago, the duo published a book together titled Iceland: Wild at Heart, printed in two different sizes. The book features both landscape and nature photographs with a caption by each photo. “It’s about Iceland as we see it.” Choosing which photos make it into a book can be difficult, but there was one rule the pair agreed couldn’t be broken: they would each have the same number of photographs in the book. It was easy enough for a pair that works side by side. “We’re together almost all the time,” says Einar. “It’s incredible that we haven’t become fed up with each other yet,” Gyða adds and they both laugh.

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rauรฐanes Einar Guรฐmann

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fjallsรกrlรณn Gyรฐa Henningsdรณttir

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white-tailed eagle Einar Guรฐmann

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arctic foxes Einar Guรฐmann

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PLENTY OF F I S H Iceland Review

Words by Jelena Ćirić

Photography by Golli

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Scenery in Arnarfjörður.

Plenty of Fish When I got an assignment to write about the controversial practice of salmon farming in Iceland, I sat down to the task with curiosity and apprehension.

Fish farming of different species has been practiced for decades in Iceland, both on land and in open water. It was only last year, however, that the Icelandic government decided to drastically increase licenses for salmon farming in open-net cages in the Westfjords. The practice has since become a topic of public debate, with many Icelanders concerned about the environmental risks that come with the farms.

Although salmon farming has been heavily criticised for its environmental impact, it has also revitalised isolated communities, especially those left out of the tourist boom. For small towns, which often feel overlooked by the government, a single industry can mean the difference between life and death. Salmon farming touches on two of Iceland’s most sensitive issues: the environment, and the divide between city and country. I set out in an attempt to better understand the different perspectives.

Fish and folk A picturesque town nestled in Arnarfjörður fjord, Bíldudalur is one of the main locations of salmon farming in the Westfjords. Anna Vilborg Rúnarsdóttir runs the town’s restaurant, Vegamót, alongside her

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husband Gísli. “When tourists drive into the fjord, they see the pens and ask what they are, and they find it really interesting. I think it’s really fun that people can walk in and order salmon off the menu that’s produced right here,” she says.

Anna Vilborg was raised in Bíldudalur, moving away as a teenager to attend high school and university. After starting a family, she wanted to return home, but a lack of job opportunities prevented the move. “Fish processing had moved away. There was nothing left for working people here.” When Gísli got a job in salmon farming in 2012, it made it possible for the couple to move their family back. “We decided to take part in this development that was just beginning. When we came back, the calcareus algae factory [Hafkalk] had started up, and people were working there. Salmon farming had started. Talking to people, you could see their outlook had changed. They were so optimistic about how there was finally some development so working people could live here again.”

While in some rural regions of Iceland, tourism can provide employment year-round, that is not the case in Bíldudalur. In the Westfjords, “tourism is very limited to the summer season,” Anna Vilborg tells me.

Their remote location, difficult roads, and extreme weather limit visitors during the colder months. “Some guesthouses are starting to open earlier in the season and close later, or even stay open year-round. But

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“There’s a really big increase of people in the area.

More children in the kindergarten, people moving back home, and also an increase in work indirectly related to salmon farming.”

that’s largely due to people who have work or errands in connection to salmon farming or are visiting relatives or friends.”

Anna Vilborg says salmon farming has revitalised Bíldudalur. “There’s a really big increase of people in the area. More children in the play school, people moving back home, and also an increase in work indirectly related to salmon farming. We feel it really strongly.”

Local residents, she says, are positive about the salmon farming industry and its further development.

“I think salmon farming can be in harmony with the area in terms of employment, the environment, and the future. It’s very positive for all of us who live here and want to keep living here.”

Troubled water Other Icelanders, such as salmon fishermen, are less optimistic about the practice of grazing salmon in offshore, open-net cages. “Aquaculture has different impacts,” ecologist Cristian Gallo of the Westfjords Iceland Nature Research Centre tells me. Cristian has worked for the institute since 2008 and conducts environmental oversight for fish farms in the area.

“The more fish you have, the greater the impact.” One main impact of the farms is the waste they deposit on the sea bottom. “When you have this amount of fish, you’re going to have an accumulation of organic

matter that is going to change the natural conditions,” Cristian states.

Another environmental concern that accompanies fish farms are parasites, particularly salmon lice.

Fish farmed in open sea pens are at greater risk of contracting sea lice, which can affect wild salmon stocks in the area. While adult salmon fare better with the lice, younger wild fish swimming near the farms are at higher risk of suffering lesions and secondary infections. To combat high amounts of lice, salmon farming company Arnarlax has treated fish in Arnarfjörður fjord with drugs two years in a row, raising concerns about how the chemicals could affect sea life in the area.

Finally, the salmon farmed in Iceland can pose a threat to the wild salmon stock if they escape through disease, competition, or interbreeding. Salmon farmed in Iceland are genetically selected from a strain of Norwegian origin. If escapees interbreed with wild Icelandic salmon, they may endanger the native species. Despite assurances from salmon farming companies, escapes have occurred everywhere salmon have been farmed in open-net cages, including Iceland.

Escapees also threaten the livelihood of many Icelandic farmers, who depend on income from recreational salmon fishing in rivers on their land.

“If salmon escapes from salmon farms then it will enter each and every river in Iceland, no matter where

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Salmon farming in Iceland is not only an environmental issue, but also a humanitarian issue, and a political one.

the salmon farm is located,” Jón Magnús Sigurðarsonin, a salmon fishing warden in Northeast Iceland, said in a recent interview.

“So that could lead to one of the biggest environmental accidents in the history of Iceland if worse comes to worst.” Licenses now allow for 71 000 tonnes of salmon to be farmed in Iceland’s fjords. In a good salmon fishing year, in comparison, only 80-90 000 wild salmon are caught in Icelandic rivers.

Both Norway and Sweden have imposed stronger regulations on open-net salmon farming in recent years. So, what is the Icelandic government doing to manage the risks associated with the practice?

A good look “My job is to take samples at different distances from the cages, analyse the fauna that is in the samples and based on that, estimate the impact,” Cristian tells me about his role in the oversight of salmon farms.

He argues that although companies may be following regulations, that may not be enough to minimise the farms’ environmental risks.

When it comes to environmental monitoring, Icelandic fish farms are subject to an international set of regulations known as the ISO 12878 standard. “The ISO standard tells you how to sample, but it states that the threshold value between the various sediment conditions are set by the responsible government. So it’s not enough to have the

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Some may argue small communities are too quick to accept polluting industries that promise local jobs.

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Although salmon farming has been heavily criticised for its environmental impact, it has also revitalised isolated communities, especially those left out of the tourist boom.

standard, you need to have a threshold that judges whether the measurements are acceptable or not. This is the issue. The companies are fulfilling the standard.

But the government has not yet set the threshold that differentiates between what is acceptable and what is not.”

There will always be activists who want to eliminate fish farming altogether, says Cristian, but “with stronger regulation and good oversight, people that are against fish farming may be more satisfied. The risk will be always there. And that is what the fish farming companies need to minimise.”

Erna Karen Óskarsdóttir, Senior Officer for Aquaculture at the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority, says regulations governing fish farming are in a near-constant process of revision. While the bulk of Icelandic legislation which currently governs the industry was put in place in 2008, it has been updated almost yearly since. A bill suggesting further changes currently sits before the Icelandic parliament. The suggested changes, Erna tells me, are for the better.

“There’s a lot of growth in the industry, so it’s really important to stay on our toes. It’s necessary.”

One resident I spoke to, however, worries salmon farming companies are already too established in many communities for their impact to be assessed objectively. “You can see it by looking at all the sports teams in the Westfjords. When the salmon farming companies are supporting the football team or fixing

the play school of course you start to have feelings instead of reasonable thinking.”

A wider net Salmon farming in Iceland is not only an environmental issue, but also a humanitarian issue, and a political issue. Some may argue small communities are too quick to accept polluting industries that promise local jobs. Without a concerted effort from the government to provide realistic alternatives, however, communities are often left in a vulnerable spot. Is this something Norwegian companies (who largely own Iceland’s salmon farms) are taking advantage of? And can the government do more to minimise environmental risks in salmon farming as well as support ignored communities? I am left with more questions than answers.

Ultimately, Icelanders must approach the topic from every angle. As Cristian adds, managing fish farming well is not only important for marine life or water quality, but also Iceland’s inhabitants. “Most of the population lives around the coast and you need to be able to manage the coast in the best way possible.”

Since the completion of this article, a routine inspection led to the discovery of two holes in an salmon farm belonging to Arnarlax in Talknafjörður in the Westfjords. Three farmed fish were later caught in the area. The total number of escaped fish is unknown.

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Salmon farming has revitalised BĂ­ldudalur.

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More than 17 000 Icelanders are declared disabled. Of those, 35% have some form of mental disability, according to Iceland’s Social Insurance Administration. Unfortunately, there are not only fewer employment opportunities for those who are disabled, there are also fewer opportunities to engage in society as a whole.

While simply increasing the number of opportunities for participation in society may seem like the obvious solution, doing so isn’t without its implications.

Words by KT Browne

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Bringing Outsider Art Inside How Inclusivity is Shifting the Icelandic Art World

The art world in Iceland is one area of society where opportunities for disabled individuals are more difficult to come by. For a small country, Iceland has an impressive number of galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces – but only few venues have specifically focused their mission on showcasing artwork outside of the perceived norm.

Changes are afoot, however, and measures are being taken to increase inclusivity within the art community, particularly when it comes to involving disabled artists.

Outsider art Located just outside Akureyri and across a calm fjord sits Safnasafnið – the Icelandic Folk and Outsider Art Museum. Founded in 1995 by artist Níels Hafstein and psychiatric nurse Magnhildur Sigurðardóttir, the museum has for over 30 years been committed to collecting artworks by artists who have been seen as “outside” the cultural mainstream. Safnasafnið’s base collection today consists of over 6 000 artworks by more than 30 artists, and each year, new annual exhibitions are installed. One of the most striking aspects of Safnasafnið is the fact that many of the artworks

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housed, are by artists with intellectual disabilities.

Within the Icelandic art world, more inclusive opportunities are arising for those who wish to contribute creatively to society. What was once deemed a highly selective realm whose trends and terminology required, above all, education to decipher, is now opening up to artists who don’t necessarily fit the standard definition of what it means to be an artist. For this reason, Safnasafnið holds a special place in the Icelandic art scene, but its existence also raises larger questions surrounding inclusivity and the limitations that disabled artists continue to face today.

That Safnasafnið is one of the only museums in Iceland with a specific focus on exhibiting (and promoting) artwork by artists with disabilities, is both terrific and problematic; it is necessary to give voice to underrepresented artists but doing so always risks deepening the very peripheries these artists fight to be seen beyond. The University of Iceland, the National Museum, and the Nordic House have also taken part in discussions about the image of disabled people in art, which has resulted in an increased number of programs and workshops that cater to artists with disabilities. Yet, while all this is

Iceland Review

The Curator (2009) by the group Huglist.

necessary in the development of a more inclusive art community, is it enough to simply carve out a space for artists who operate outside the mainstream, or is further integration necessary? Does labelling certain art forms or artists only segregate creative communities?

“There is an invisible border within the art world,” says Ragnheiður Maísól Sturludóttir, the artistic director of the Icelandic Art Without Borders festival. “Disabled artists don’t need to be put into a box – they go to their studio every day, sit down and do their work, and they have a very strong work ethic and style.” Art Without Borders is an art festival that focuses on presenting work by disabled artists in Iceland – the festival is also a close collaborator with Safnasafnið. Its aim is to promote

a more versatile society and cultural equality through presenting disabled people as positive members of society who have a say. While Art Without Border’s focus is on giving disabled artists more voice than they’ve had in society thus far, they emphasise collaboration rather than labelling disabled artists as such. “I find the term ‘disabled artist’ problematic,” says Ragnheiður. “It would be like saying, ‘This is an exhibition by a woman artist.’

We have this need to always put people in boxes, but if an artist’s disability doesn’t matter to their artwork, it’s not necessary to know about it.”

Labels and terms are a flawed necessity in the art community; without them, distinguished styles and forms would take on very different values (what would contemporary art be if it wasn’t

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Iceland Review

Art by Halla Birgisdóttir.

deemed “contemporary”?), yet their presence also perpetuates a culture of valorisation – one that demands that artworks and artists meet certain criteria in order to be deemed a success. This begs the question: to what extent is it necessary to impose labels in order to ascribe meaning to art?

And how “labelled” does an artist become before their artwork is overshadowed by that label?

Kristinn Guðbrandur Harðarson, an artist and teacher of a workshop for disabled artists at The Reykjavik School of Visual Arts, also takes issue with the term “disabled artist.” “It’s problematic,” he says. “But if it’s taken away – this frame – this kind of art might risk going unseen if society is not ready to see it in that context.”

Equality vs. value It has never been more difficult to strike a balance between emphasising underrepresented voices and assimilating their differences into culture. Iceland’s rapidly diversifying society has, in no small way, played a role in this. On the one hand, we want to call attention to our differences, while at the same time, we strive to appreciate the unity we all share. And like most areas of a society, accessibility and opportunity (or the lack thereof) are critical issues inherent within this balance. “If you are in a wheelchair, you can’t access the art university in Iceland,” Ragnheiður explains. “The school is not wheelchair accessible. The university has been fighting for it, but it remains a financial hurdle. The government needs to take way more steps to making education accessible for all.”

Making education accessible to all, particularly art education, is an important step in increasing the diversity of the artwork that’s produced. Without that accessibility, the art world risks becoming – or staying – homogenous. “The spectrum [of artwork] is relatively small here,” Kristinn admits. “In Iceland, the discussion about ‘outsider art’ is fairly new, and the country is usually somewhat behind in the development of intellectual areas, at least in the

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arts. However, as a nation, we have more equality than some other big nations in the Western world.”

The solution, according to Ragnheiður, involves a kind of unseeing. “If we just can meet everyone as equals no matter what they look like or where they come from, we’ll have succeeded as a society.”

Society does often need to overlook external characteristics (such as intellectual disability, race or nationality) in order to nurture diversity and an integrated population. But alongside the necessity to unsee our differences, is the risk we run by doing so: if we see everyone as the same, we might overlook what makes us unique. The same concept holds true for artwork; if we neutralise the categories that so often provide context, we run the risk of watering down an artwork’s meaning, or worse, even rendering it pointless. How, then, ought we to go about navigating difference and opportunity within the art community while preserving the value of its categorisations?

The motivations for artmaking are as vast as artwork itself, and part of the difficulty in assigning value to art is the decision we must make about where to place that value – should we value the artist over the artwork? The artwork over the artist? The concept or commentary it provides, or its technique? There is, of course, no clear answer to these questions, but what is certain, is that equalising all artwork would be a disservice to the art world and undercut the diversity of the messages it conveys.

The spirit of creation Usually, when I visit art galleries or museums, I notice that I often spend a good amount of time staring at an artwork because I am driven to decipher its meaning. Often times, its meaning eludes me, and I am left feeling inadequate because I didn’t manage to “crack the code” or brainless for not having understood its message. I spent over an hour at Safnasafnið, but not because I was itching to unravel the concepts behind the artwork on display,

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but rather because I was smitten with the spirit of creation that I found to play a major role in the creation of these works – straightforward materials, methods, and compositions seemed to depict not a desperate grasp at a concept or a need to fit a trend, but the pleasure of creation for creation’s sake. Ironically, it was this straightforward aesthetic within much of the artwork at Safnasafnið that allowed for its messages to come through in a way that is often difficult to access in much of today’s contemporary artwork, where value is often placed on work that either conforms with an aesthetic or thematic trend or radically counteracts it in such a way that is seen as edgy or controversial.

I left Safnasafnið extremely fulfilled and intrigued, but these sentiments did not come without questions – questions about how right (or wrong) it is to assign labels to artists; about how deeply a society can engage disadvantaged or underrepresented voices before the constructs of culture shift unrecognisably; about how far we can push the spectrum of political correctness before we become patronising. Still, the museum itself is something to be deeply appreciated, and many others in Iceland can surely learn from its mission.

The solution to the question of balancing opportunity and preservation is always one of the central challenges of growing societies, and also often a double-edged sword; providing too few opportunities for citizens creates animosity, while providing too many opportunities creates problems of its own and risks diluting certain pillars of society

that many have worked so hard to form and perfect.

Though perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is how we can carve out new spaces for a growing community while preserving unique identities – spaces that do not impede on those that are already established, but rather enrich them in a way similar to how having a second child expands a parent’s heart, unlocks new corridors of love without inviting so much as the thought that the first child is loved any less.

For the art world in Iceland, the path forward is growing clearer, but there is still work to be done. “I would like for more galleries in Reykjavík to take on more disabled artists,” Ragnheiður adds. “They are more visible now because of the festival and because so many people have fought for that visibility within the festival, but we are very far from integration and visibility.” The same can be said of increasing job and education opportunities for disabled people in Iceland. Without investing in these areas of society, how can we ensure continued diversification?

How can we expect for the invisible borders that segregate our culture to disappear? And just as importantly, once additional opportunities are in place, it will become essential to protect their value and selectivity – both within and beyond the art world. Ragnheiður, though hopeful that Iceland is on a good way to bolstering its diversity within art, is well aware of how deeply society can benefit from making more of an effort to do so, “There is so much more to gain from diversity and collaboration than from people being in separate corners.”

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Iceland Review

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