SPORT IN THE BALANCE
Can Iceland’s glíma wrestlers keep the tradition going – and stay on their feet?
CULTURE STUMBLING INTO SUCCESS
Vigdís Hafliðadóttir isn’t really a comedian. Or an actress. Or a singer.
KEFLAVÍK PT. 2: WINDS OF CHANGE
The residents of Keflavík come from all over: but why are they there?
NEWS IN BRIEF 6
ASK ICELAND REVIEW 8
IN FOCUS
RELOCATING REYKJAVÍK AIRPORT 10 ÍSLANDSBANKI PRIVATE STOCK
OFFERING 14
LOOKING BACK
THE MAKING OF MODERN ICELAND 110
The inventions, innovations, and events that brought Iceland into the modern day.
FICTION
GARDENING 118
ART
ERRÓ: REMEMBRANCES OF A TITAN 42
Visual artist Erró reflects on his 70-year career.
SPORT
IN THE BALANCE 26
Can Iceland’s glíma wrestlers keep the tradition going – and stay on their feet?
INNOVATION
GROUNDED 18
Iceland’s creative people are zooming in on the microscopic.
POLITICS
TO THE VOTE 70 Municipal elections, mergers, and what they reveal about the links within small communities
CULTURE
STUMBLING INTO SUCCESS 52
Vigdís Hafliðadóttir isn’t really a comedian. Or an actress. Or a singer.
FILM & TELEVISION
AFTERSHOCKS 64
Author Auður Jónsdóttir and Director Tinna Hrafnsdóttir on how we tell our own stories.
PHOTOGRAPHY
EYE FOR AN ISLAND 96
Oscar Bjarnason reflects on looking through a lens – and truly seeing.
COMMUNITY
KEFLAVÍK PT. 2: WINDS OF CHANGE 80
The residents of Keflavík come from all over: but why are they there?
CONTRIBUTORS
Editor
Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir
Cover photo
Oscar Bjarnason
Publisher
Kjartan Þorbjörnsson
Design & production
Daníel Stefánsson
Writers
Birnir Jón Sigurðsson
Frank Walter Sands
Jelena Ćirić
Kjartan Þorbjörnsson
Ragnar Tómas Hallgrímsson
llustrator
Helga Páley Friðþjófsdóttir
Photographers
Golli
Lilja Jóns
Oscar Bjarnason
Translators
Jelena Ćirić
Larissa Kyzer
Copy editing & proofreading
Jelena Ćirić
Ragnar Tómas Hallgrímsson
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Visiting a place when it’s covered in snow and returning during summer is an interesting experience. It’s the same ground below and the same sky above, but it might just as well be on a different planet. There doesn’t even have to be snow on the ground for things to look completely different; the light in winter is so different from the light in summer that it can drastically alter the landscape, creating deep, dark shadows or changing the colour of the water. We live in an age where we are able to provide hard and fast scientific evidence for so many things that we are sometimes eager to eliminate the human imagination completely. Facts are facts, sure, but mindset matters as well. Auður Jónsdóttir’s novel Quake was recently adapted into a film. According to her, there are as many versions of her novels as there are readers. Even though they read the same words, they get completely different outcomes. Perspectives vary greatly, and sometimes even having a conversation with someone from an older generation can be a challenge, as they’re not speaking into the same frame of reference as you are, as our journalist found out in a conversation with nonagenarian pop artist Erró. The people of Keflavík come from different backgrounds. Some are born and raised in town, others elsewhere in the country, or the world. The sleepy town might be a bore for some people, but for people who have found it a refuge from turbulence, that sleepiness is a welcome calm. Context matters, and it changes the way we see things. A small wrestling tournament in East Iceland might sound like an insignificant event but not when you know it’s the continuation of a sport brought over by the country’s first settlers. Voting day in a municipality counting 60 people in total isn’t news to the 7,753,999,940 people in the world but to those 60 people of Skorradalur, West Iceland, it matters a great deal. In this issue of Iceland Review, we also see Iceland through the eyes of a Faroese photographer, fame through the eyes of singer and comic Vigdís Hafliðadóttir, and Iceland’s microbial ecosystems through the eyes of Icelandic creatives. It’s always good to get a new perspective.
Photography by Golli
The Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management declared an “uncertainty phase” in mid-May due to ongoing earthquakes on the Reykjanes peninsula, the site of last year’s Fagradalsfjall volcanic eruption. Several earthquakes over M3 were detected in the region, including one of magnitude 4.7. Uplift (land rise) and expansion was also measured in the area, leading experts to surmise that magma was likely collecting below the surface.
As of the time of writing, it is much too early to tell whether the activity on Reykjanes could end in an eruption. Many experts believe the Fagradalsfjall eruption marked the beginning of a more volcanically active period on the peninsula. Volcanologist Þorvaldur Þórðarson has even stated there is a 50% chance of another eruption on Reykjanes this year.
Iceland held municipal elections countrywide on May 14, 2022. The results were historic, particularly for two parties: the Progressive Party, who doubled its following nationwide compared to the 2018 election, and the Independence Party, who saw their worst-ever election results in Reykjavík. Despite significant losses across the country, the Independence Party remains the party with the most local councillors nationwide, or 110.
Reykjavík’s ruling coalition lost their majority in the election, which resulted in seat losses for the Social-Democratic Alliance, the Reform Party, and the Independence Party, but more seats won by the Pirate and Socialist Parties. As elsewhere in the country, the Progressive Party saw great success in Reykjavík, going from zero seats on the City Council to four. Voter turnout decreased in all of the country’s largest municipalities except Hafnarfjörður, but this could be due to new election laws, which increased the number of registered voters by extending voting rights to a larger number of foreign residents.
Coalition talks between councillors have begun.
A new forecast by Isavia projects that 5.7 million passengers will pass through Keflavík Airport in 2022. According to the Director of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association Jóhannes Þór Skúlason, the tourism industry must hire between 7,000-9,000 foreign workers to meet demand. Jóhannes is happy to see improved prospects for the industry, but estimates that around 9,000 workers have left Iceland’s tourism industry since 2019, half of them Icelandic and the other half foreign citizens. While some staff have returned, new hires account for 70-80% of staff today.
The restaurant sector, in particular, faces staffing shortages. Visitors to Iceland may also experience difficulty securing rental cars: as dealerships have not imported enough cars to meet growing tourist demand, some rental companies have begun importing their own.
Q1 I read that the Reykjavík Zoo is expanding its seal enclosure. How many seals are kept there?
Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo is currently home to four seals: Særún (female), Svavar, Garðar, and Kópur (male). Særún is the oldest, born in 1989, while Svavar and Garðar were born in 2017 and Kópur in 2019. The three younger seals are a bit more active than Særún and are known to jump when they’re excited about something, like an upcoming meal. Særún has slowed down with age but has learned to communicate well with her keepers: she bites at the air when she wants fish.
With a depth of 1.7 metres, the seals’ current pool is fairly shallow. Its volume is therefore also small, just over 100 metres cubed. The new pool, which will connect to the old one, will quadruple the
total volume of the pool and will be more than four metres [13 feet] deep, allowing the seals more room for diving. Unlike the current seal facilities, the new enclosure will conform to the guidelines of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. The expansion is expected to be complete by November 2022.
Most of the animals at Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo are domestic animals such as sheep and goats. Keeping seals at the park has been controversial. In 2019, Marine biologist and Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo division head Þorkell Heiðarsson argued that pups born in the enclosure should be released into the wild. Icelandic law, however, does not allow seals to be released from captivity.
Q2 I’m a musician: how can I get press coverage of my music in Iceland?
Iceland has a lively music scene, with a plethora of diverse performing and recording artists. Local media does a fine job covering new local releases and concerts, particularly the Icelandic national radio, but also local print newspapers, both in Icelandic and English. When it comes to music, Icelandic media has quite a local focus, and when international artists are covered, they are usually artists that are wellknown globally, or have a special connection with Iceland (like, for example, having lived here for many years, such as Damon Albarn or John Grant).
If you are coming to Iceland to perform, contacting local newspapers and radio is a good bet in order to get press coverage. If you’d like to know more about the local scene, you can contact Iceland Music, the music export office of Iceland. While they mostly help Iceland-based musicians to develop their careers, they also connect international musicians to the local scene. Musicians from abroad who come to record in Iceland are also eligible for a 25% refund of the costs incurred in recording in the country: more information at record.iceland.is.
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The Icelandic government’s sale of 22.5% of Íslandsbanki bank in a private stock offering last March has resulted in allegations of corruption, investigations by two state institutions, weekly public protests, and calls for Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to resign. What went wrong?
After the 2008 banking collapse, a restructuring of Iceland’s financial system took place. From the ruins of banks that had become insolvent, three state banks were established: Íslandsbanki, Landsbankinn, and Arion Bank. Landsbankinn remains in 98.2% state ownership to this day, and there are no plans to sell it. Arion Bank has passed into private ownership, and the current government is in the process of selling Íslandsbanki in stages.
State ownership
has long been higher in Iceland than in neighbouring countries, much to the chagrin of local finance experts, and the sale of Íslandsbanki has been on government agendas for years. Recent governments have argued that its sale would reduce state risk on the financial market and that the earnings could be used to finance muchneeded infrastructure projects.
In early 2020, the Icelandic government began preparations to sell Íslandsbanki,
but when the pandemic hit and economic conditions worsened, the sale was put on hold. At the end of that year, it was once again announced that Íslandsbanki would be sold in stages, beginning in 2021. The first partial sale was carried out in June of last year: a public stock offering where a 35% stake in the bank was up for grabs.
The sale was successful: the state still owned 65%, with 24% now in the hands of local investors and 11% held by foreign investors. Share value rose immediately following the sale, which led to some criticism of the low share price state authorities had set for the sale.
The next stage of the sale was announced early this year: the government would sell another 22.5% of Íslandsbanki in a private stock offering in March 2022. Unlike the first offering, in which the public could buy shares, this second offering would solely be open to professional investors or investment companies, which would receive an invitation to buy shares. The sale was successful, reducing the state ownership of Íslandsbanki from 65% to 42.5%. Yet cracks in the surface quickly began to appear.
The handling of this second share offering was criticised by opposition MPs both for its lack of transparency and the discount given to investors, who purchased shares at a 4% discount from their market
value despite high demand. The discount amounted to ISK 2.25 billion [$17 million; €16.1 million], which opponents argued should have ended in the state treasury.
The lack of transparency on how the sale was conducted was also harshly criticised. Financial expert Ásgeir Brynjar Torfason told RÚV that it was unclear on what grounds investors had been selected to take part and that Icelandic State Financial Investments (ISFI) and the Ministry of Finance needed to answer that question. He also called on authorities to answer why such a large discount was given, despite high demand for the shares.
Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson, legally responsible for the sale, responded to the criticism by stating that the goal of the offering was to acquire long-term investors in the bank, and that Icelandic pension funds had been the main purchasers in the offering. As more information about the sale became public, however, a different picture emerged.
At first, the public had no knowledge of who had taken part in the March offering. The ISFI initially stated that there were legal obstacles to making the list of investors public, but as public demand mounted, the government eventually decided to publish the list. It contained slightly over 200 individuals and companies that had
participated in the sale. The largest single buyer was Gildi Pension Fund, followed by the Pension Fund for Icelandic State Employees, Brú Pension Fund, and the VR Union Pension Fund. All other investors purchased less than 4% each of the total shares available in this offering.
Among the investors of that remaining 4%, however, were some notable names. They included Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, the largest shareholder in Glitnir bank before it went bust in Iceland’s 2008 banking collapse; Samherji CEO and former Glitnir chairman Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson; and, perhaps most notably, Benedikt Sveinsson, the father of Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson. Other purchasers included employees of the consulting company that had been hired to manage the sale.
Just two weeks after the sale, share prices had risen by 11%. In contrast to the Finance Minister’s stated goals for the offering, updated shareholder lists revealed that over half of the investors that purchased shares in the March offering had sold them within days or weeks.
In early April, as anger and disappointment rose among the nation, government ministers laid low, refusing requests for interviews. Then, on April 19, the government released a statement announcing its plans
to introduce a bill to dismantle ISFI, the state institution that managed the sale of the bank. The statement admitted to some shortcomings in the handling of the private offering, primarily that it was clear “that the implementation of the sale did not fully live up to the government’s expectations, e.g. on transparency and clear dissemination of information.”
The decision to dismantle Icelandic State Financial Investments did not appease critics of the sale. Chairman of the Centre Party Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson asked whether government ministers had any plan as to what would replace ISFI. One analyst describes the decision as a cover-up, and political analysts agreed that the government was on thin ice. A public protest was organised and calls for Bjarni Benediktsson to resign grew louder. As of the time of writing, weekly protests continue, and are well-attended.
In early April, the Ministry of Finance appointed the Icelandic National Audit Office (Ríkisendurskoðun) to review the March 2022 sale. A report from the office is expected to be published in June 2022. The Central Bank of Iceland also announced in April that it was investigating some aspects of the sale but declined to reveal further details. Opposition MPs have also called
for Parliament to launch an independent investigation into the sale.
The government’s ratings have plummeted since the fallout of the Íslandsbanki private share offering. Polls in late April showed that all three governing parties had lost significant following, with the Finance Minister’s Independence Party showing the biggest drop. Another poll showed that trust in Bjarni Benediktsson had fallen by half since last autumn, from 37% of respondents to 18%. More than seven out of ten respondents stated that they had little or very little trust in Bjarni.
Any further sale of Íslandsbanki shares has been shelved for the time being: the government has stated that it will not sell any more of its stake in the bank until ISFI has been dismantled and a new system has been established in its place. Whether the sale – or the continued protests – will have any long-term impact on the governing parties remains to be seen. While some expected the issue to sway voters in the recent municipal elections, it’s difficult to say whether it did. In the short term, at least, the handling of the sale hasn’t had a concrete impact on the government, aside from lower ratings from the public.
Listasafn Íslands
National Gallery of Iceland
Fríkirkjuvegur 7 101 Reykjavík
Safnahúsið
The House of Collections
Hverfisgata 15 101 Reykjavík
Hús Ásgríms Jónssonar
Home of an Artist
Bergstaðastræti 74 101 Reykjavík
The dispute over the location of the Reykjavík City Airport is nearly as old as the airport itself. An agreement has now been made to move it from its current location in Vatnsmýri and build a residential development in its place – but a new location for the airport is yet to be determined.
The airport debate reared its head again in the lead-up to the municipal elections this spring, with one new party, Reykjavík Besta Borgin (e. Reykjavík the Best City), basing their entire platform on the airport’s relocation. And it’s not the first time it has weighed heavily in Reykjavík elections: in 2014, the Progressive Party campaigned under the party name “Progressives and Friends of the Airport,” fighting to keep the airport’s current location.
So, should Reykjavík City Airport stay, or should it go?
The first flight from the site that is now Reykjavík City Airport occurred on September 3, 1919, with the take-off of the first-ever aeroplane in Iceland, an Avro 504. In March 1940, Flugfélag Íslands began operating scheduled flights from the location, at a time when the airport’s runway was a mere grass surface. In October of 1940, however, construction of the first paved runway began, carried out by the British Army’s Black Watch Regiment.
Reportedly, it was the British Army that decided to build the airport in Vatnsmýri, just a stone’s throw from downtown Reykjavík. Vatnsmýri had been just one of many locations local authorities had considered, but once the war broke out, they thought it too dangerous for an airport due to the risk of air offensives or flight accidents. Despite local authorities’ protests, the British Army went ahead with construction.
In 1946, the British Royal Air Force handed operation of the airport over to the Icelandic government. Almost immediately, some voices, including that of Reykjavík Mayor Bjarni Benediktsson (grandfather of current Finance Minister of the same name), clamoured that the airport should be moved. At the time, however, the country’s road and transport infrastructure were much less developed, and having the airport so close to the city centre was thought to be convenient for domestic travel. The airport stayed put, but the dispute did not die down, often intensifying during election campaigns, or when the City of Reykjavík was drafting land-use plans.
Decades passed, Reykjavík grew and expanded, and the airport has remained in the same location, one that was not even chosen by locals in the first place. Today, flights in and out of the airport are mostly domestic, though seasonal flights to and from Greenland are also offered. Most of the
airport’s flights are operated by Icelandair’s domestic branch, though two other domestic airlines currently operate from the city airport: Norlandair and Eagle Air. Besides scheduled commercial flights, the airport is used by helicopter tour companies, private planes, and, crucially, medical and emergency flights.
There are many reasons that Vatnsmýri is a convenient location for the city airport. It’s across the street from the National University Hospital, which makes it an ideal landing site for medical flights. Individuals who sustain serious injuries in traffic accidents in the countryside, for example, are most often transported to Reykjavík by air to receive treatment. Relocating the airport farther away from the hospital would potentially increase risk for such patients.
When it comes to routine medical services, many specialised services are only (or primarily) provided in Reykjavík. Residents living elsewhere in the country must therefore travel to the capital to obtain such services, and relocating the airport farther from the centre would make that
process less convenient and more costly. But it’s not only medical services: rural residents visit Reykjavík for all kinds of services that are not available in their own municipalities, and being able to fly directly to the centre of town for such routine trips ensures such services are accessible to all of Iceland’s residents – and minimises their cost.
Iceland’s infamous volcanic eruptions are another argument for keeping the airport in its current location: other prospective locations in the capital area are more prone to eruptions. If an emergency evacuation of residents is necessary, having a functioning airport – as opposed to one buried by molten lava – is helpful.
While the airport’s current location is convenient for countryside residents requiring services in the capital, moving it could provide many benefits to Reykjavík residents. As its population has grown, Reykjavík, like other cities, has experienced its share of urban sprawl. As a result, commute times have lengthened and traffic worsened across the capital area.
Relocating the airport would free up a huge swath of land that, if developed, would densify the city and reduce traffic, bringing with it a positive environmental impact and improved quality of life for capital-area residents.
For decades, Reykjavík has also been plagued by a housing shortage. The area now occupied by the airport could accommodate apartments for 1015 thousand people. Building on the lot would not only create homes in a great location, it would also be much less costly than building of the outskirts of the city, which would involve laying water pipes and electricity lines already present in the airport area. Another notable benefit of moving the airport is reducing the noise pollution created by planes taking off and
“Relocating the airport would provide more space for the city centre and the University of Iceland, and in addition to that, a residential neighbourhood for 10-15,000 people could be built on the land that the airport takes up.”
Morgunblaðið newspaper, January 17, 1981.
reports, and city planning, and the airport debate does not seem any closer to a resolution. It’s evident that proponents of relocation will have to work even harder to convince the Vatnsmýri airport’s supporters that moving the airport is not only better for Reykjavík residents but for airport operations, flight safety, and the country as a whole.
“Does it cross any sane man’s mind that a prudent owner of this land would choose to operate an airport on it? No, hardly, and even less when there is as little air traffic as is currently the case and when traffic is decreasing – with huge operational losses to boot. It is much more cost-effective to build on this land, to construct handsome homes for tens of thousands.”
Morgunblaðið newspaper, March 8, 2001.
Iceland’s nature is truly magnificent. Grand mountain ranges flanking bottomless fjords. Endless stretches of tundra and vast glaciers. Formidable rivers and thundering waterfalls. But whatis there to see when you take your focus off the horizon and bring it closer: to the soil beneath your feet? What if you could zoom in even further, see the microorganisms that are invisible to the naked eye but actually make up the vast majority of the genetic diversity on the planet and are the basis of its ecosystems?
We have plenty of information on Iceland’s soil and microbial ecosystems. But theoretical knowledge is quite a different beast from practical knowledge. You can put soil under a microscope, dissect its chemical components, and assess which tiny critters reside in it. Or you could take a more creative approach and experiment – just to see what happens. Through trial and error, Iceland’s creative people are digging in the dirt – literally – and making illuminating discoveries along the way.
A far cry from mass-produced soil, forming clay by hand is an intimate one, with the material coming to life from the touch of an artist’s fingers. That sort of connection is hard to come by with Iceland’s soil: most of the ingredients Icelandic ceramic artists work with are imported. While there’s clay all around the country, making it into a piece of pottery is a challenge. Ceramic artist Hulda Katarína Sveinsdóttir grew up in Hveragerði, a town named for the geologically active ground. “I felt an affinity for the hot spring clay, but people really don’t like it, and I get that, because it’s hard to work with.”
A few years ago, Hulda began researching what she could make from Icelandic clay. “The results were brittle and would often explode in the oven.” Working with natural clay means that you don’t always know what you’re getting into. Clay is a fine-grained, natural soil containing clay minerals, but its chemical composition differs vastly. The most obvious way you can tell is its range of colours. “When I was studying, we looked into Icelandic clay. You’ll see a field of bright red clay streaked with veins of yellow or silver,” Hulda tells me. Once she had explored all the qualities (and weaknesses) of Iceland’s clay, she was most struck by the colours. “I kept working on it, and I noticed that cloth that touched the clay would stain, and the colour wouldn’t easily wash out.”
One of the difficulties of working with Icelandic clay is that it shrinks drastically in the kiln. It’s not just water that evaporates but all sorts of natural chemicals, such as sulphur. “When firing the clay, it’s important to be wary of the fumes, as a lot of sulphur dioxide gets released.” Sulphur is a natural colour fastener, which inspired Hulda to start thinking about the clay colours in a new way. “I started wondering if I could dye fabrics in these colours and did a few experiments, but it wasn’t clicking. I’m a ceramic artist, not a textile artist. But that’s the process that led me to make crayons out of the clay.” In her natural clay crayons, Hulda captures the surprisingly varied colourscape of Iceland, using finely ground clay from geothermal sites and the region surrounding her hometown of Hveragerði.
During the process, several things surprised her. The biggest one was the immense variation between different types of clay, even those that were sourced only a few kilometres from each other. Some required only a bare minimum of the soy wax she uses as a binder, while others turned brittle without plenty of it. “I thought I could figure out the ratio and use the same recipe for all of the assorted colours. That was impossible. Each clay had its very own personality.” While the crayons present a beautiful way to connect with the colours of Iceland, to Hulda, this is one step of the way to familiarising herself with Iceland’s clay.
If this is so easy and so good for the planet and so effective, why hasn’t anyone done this on a large scale?
Björk Brynjarsdóttir and Julia Miriam Brenner love dirt so much that they want to make more of it. Much more, in fact. And they’ve developed an ingenious way to do it: by making trash into treasure.
In the modern world, technological improvements have often served to move us further away from natural processes. One of the most pertinent issues this has created is the way we manage waste: burning it or burying it in a landfill isn’t sustainable, and all over the world, people are working hard to solve the problem of what to do with what we throw away.
Björk and Júlía are working on one such solution through their composting company Jarðgerðarfélagið. Their goal is to take a complicated issue – managing organic household waste –and develop a solution applicable on a large scale without sacrificing the hygiene and comfort we’ve come to expect. The key, if you ask the pair, is microorganisms. Have you ever made compost? You need time, oxygen, and heat, and you even need to stir it. That process brings to mind two unpleasant words: trash juice. When Björk was studying in Denmark, she heard about another composting method: fermentation. “The first thing that sparked my interest was what this would mean for the environment,” Björk tells me. “But now I just find everything about it fascinating.” Her partner in crime, Julia, is a soil scientist. They met while taking a class on home composting. “The thing is, individuals can compost independently, and many are, but they shouldn’t have to. Putting the responsibility on the individual is not a sustainable solution.” She explains that in Iceland, the responsibility of waste management is entirely in the hands of municipal authorities. If they want to do better, they can – and they should!
Bokashi composting is a way of taking organic waste
and transforming it into nutritious fertiliser. Composting is not the right word for it, as the bokashi method relies on fermentation, an anaerobic (oxygen-free) process, and traditional composting requires oxygen. Developed in Japan in the eighties, all you need to do it at home is a sealed bucket and some microorganism-infused bran, and in two weeks, your vegetable scraps and banana peels become usable fertiliser. Unlike traditional composting methods, there’s no stirring needed, and since the bucket is fully sealed, it doesn’t emit any unwanted smells. The microorganisms kill harmful bacteria and promote the growth of good ones, much like when making kimchi or sauerkraut. Keeping organic waste out of landfills also stops it from producing more greenhouse gases.
It all sounds a little too good to be true. “Right?” says Björk. “At every step in this process, we’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, if this is so easy and so good for the planet and so effective, why hasn’t anyone done this on a large scale?” Björk and Julia are now working with Rangárvallasýsla, a region in south Iceland, to scale up their bokashi production. “We’ve been taking this one step at a time, not making grand plans until we know for sure that this works. But so far, it’s been working pretty spectacularly. After our first pilot project, we did some user interviews, and people were thrilled with it. And the process creates a nitrate-rich soil, which is perfect for Iceland, as our volcanic soil naturally lacks nitrate.” When doing their due diligence, Julia and Björk were also pleasantly surprised with the hygienic properties of their microorganisms. “We absolutely flooded some waste with E. coli and salmonella to test them. After leaving it with the microbes for a couple of weeks, the harmful bacteria had been completely annihilated.”
Iceland’s environment doesn’t only offer materials for artmaking: its microorganisms can also make food. While modern science has deepened our understanding of microorganisms such as yeast, you don’t need to know what’s working or how to make some magic happen. People have been doing it for millennia; baking bread, fermenting vegetables for storage and easier consumption – and making beer.
When Sveinn Steinar Benediktsson and Kjartan Óli Guðmundsson met, they were both studying design at the Iceland University of the Arts. They shared a massive interest in microorganisms, and over a beer or two, Grugg&Makk was born. Using old traditions peppered with modern science, they set out to figure out what Iceland tasted like.
To make beer, you only need four ingredients: water, grain, hops, and yeast. The yeast is where things get complicated. These days, you can go to the grocery store and buy commercially produced yeast that comes to life in your bread or beer, but you don’t actually have to go that far; there’s yeast in the soil and air all around us. The Grugg&Makk boys simply leave out a liquid containing the optimal conditions for the kinds of microbes they want to attract, and the milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. Only in this case, the milkshake is an unfermented beer base, and the yard is a brewery.
“Grugg&Makk is all about collecting bacteria in certain places in Iceland,” Sveinn tells me. “We’re connecting the microbial ecosystems of specific locations with a flavour experience. So, you can taste a place.” A glass of wild ale brewed with yeast collected in a lava field is a cloudy golden colour and tastes fresh, with a hint of currants, lactic acid, and warm spices. “Seeing through a microscope doesn’t tell you much about what’s going on, but tasting a beer made with yeast from Svörtuloft versus one made with yeast from Djúpalón - the vast difference between them gives you a deeper sense of the scale. Everyone assumes we add different flavours to the beers, but it’s just what happens. It’s amazing how much difference different microbes can make. And taste is one form of perception.”
Their methods are based on culinary traditions present in most cultures throughout history, even Iceland. Kjartan explains: “To make skyr, people would use some skyr from the previous batch as a starter, keeping their culture alive. But if every last scrap of skyr got eaten, you had to get some new microbes. Waiting until summer, you would put out a few bowls of skyr base in various places around the farm and then pick the best-tasting one as the base for your future skyr.”
“And people would have favourite skyr based on which farm it came from!” Sveinn chimes in. “Although the beers from farmland regions were some of the most challenging
“We’re connecting the microbial ecosystems of specific location with a flavour experience. So, you can taste a place.”
ones we made - flavourwise. Except for maybe the Ingjaldstún one?” he looks questioningly at Kjartan. “Well, that one was also close to some swampland. I liked it; it tasted a little bit Belgian.”
The difference between these guys and rural Icelanders in centuries gone by is that modern science has cast a light on what’s happening behind the scenes. As they get lost in talk about the differences between saccharomyces and brettanomyces and what makes beer taste “farmy” – the mad scientist vibe borders on uncanny.
They agree that the most accessible beer they made happens to come from lava fields by the sea. Their experiments included visiting the locations in different seasons (more mushroom spores in the air in the fall), and they wondered if the temperature in the sun-soaked black lava affected the outcome. While collecting wild microbes is a game of chance, they also exert a considerable level of control. “Back in the day, beer was sourer, like this one, because lactic bacteria would also be present. It keeps bad bacteria at bay. Most bacteria ideal for human consumption
can’t survive in low-acid conditions. It helps to make the product safe for consumption. So, we use old traditions with modern knowledge of microorganisms. We create optimal conditions for the yeasts and microbes we want to collect in our collecting liquid. The base is unfermented beer, with a little alcohol to keep mould at bay. I add a little yeast nutrient to it and a tiny amount of hops, so I don’t get too much lactic acid.”
Letting nature do its thing through a controlled process based on old traditions and modern science – along with a whole lot of trial and error.
That’s how you make magic.
Photography by Golli
Words by Kjartan Þorbjörnsson
Translated by Jelena Ćirić
“Stigið!” calls the referee, and the two glíma wrestlers – who had just shaken hands, grabbed each other’s belts, and gotten into position, chin to cheek – start a sort of dance, their backs straight as arrows. After two or three steps, the referee blows his whistle. The fight may now begin. One of the wrestlers is at least 20 centimetres taller than the other and significantly heavier, hardly a fair match. No one else in the sports centre in Reyðarfjörður, East Iceland, seems concerned. In this Icelandic glíma wrestling championship, Íslandsglíman, everyone competes against everyone else, regardless of size, weight, or age, and each victory gives coveted points. Fifteen seconds later, the smaller wrestler is on the ground, and the larger one is celebrating. The next two wrestlers are up.
We’re not in Reyðarfjörður’s new, state-of-the-art sports centre. The old one is typical for a small town. The swimming pool is hidden under the gymnasium floor, so it’s only possible to use one or the other at any given time – the pool or the small gym. A “deep end” sign hangs on the brown, woodpanelled walls by the narrow equipment room, from which the competitors of the 111th Íslandsglíman parade into the room to the applause of some 40 audience members. They’re led by the flagbearer, Ásmundur Hálfdán Ásmundsson, five-time Glíma Champion of Iceland. The locals refer to them as Glíma Kings. He’s clearly the largest of the 14 wrestlers who are here to compete for Grettir’s Belt and Freyja’s Chain, the trophies awarded to male and female champions, respectively. The competition is being held a couple of weeks later than usual, which means that many regular competitors couldn’t make it this year. Some are in the middle of school or university exams while others are up to their necks in the lambing season: glíma is most popular in the countryside.
Referees and staff show up early to measure out the playing field and mark it with tape, as well as set up flags and arrange the time-honoured trophies while competitors warm up. There’s an easy atmosphere within the group: most seem to know each other, and many of them quite well, not unlike at a family reunion. The largest group of participants is from the East Iceland Youth and Sports Association (UÍA): six competitors in the men’s division and one in the women’s. Two other competitors are from Njarðvík, Southwest Iceland, four women from Dalir, West Iceland, and one from Mývatn, North Iceland: Einar Eyþórsson.
The 28-year-old Einar has big plans for this tournament. Sporting a dark hoodie and headphones, he keeps to himself, warming up alone in one corner of the gymnasium. Einar and Ásmundur the Glíma King are the same age and have been competing against each other since they started wrestling. “I was six when dad dragged me along to a practice. He was preparing the boys in the district for some competition. I haven’t taken off my belt since,” Einar says when I ask him how long he’s been practising glíma. “He comes from a great line of glíma wrestlers,” interrupts Jón M. Ívarsson, a man who knows everything about this sport, and has been the driving force in Iceland’s glíma community for decades. “His dad was a two-time Glíma King, and his brother Pétur won the title nine times. An extraordinary glíma lineage.”
Despite this lineage and years of opportunities, Einar has yet to beat Ásmundur in a tournament. “You can start competing in glíma at the age of 10, in primary school tournaments. Since then, Ásmundur and I have generally been fighting each other for first and second place. It’s pretty rough that I still haven’t beat him.” But Einar is far from giving up. “I’ll win this belt if it’s the last thing I do,” he says, looking me firmly in the eyes. But the women are up first.
Kristín Embla Guðjónsdóttir is the only one who warms up in Einar’s corner. They’ve been practice buddies since they both moved to Reykjavík. She is 21 years old, from Reyðarfjörður,
"HE
Iceland’s national sport, glíma has been practiced since settlement. It’s believed the first settlers brought it from Norway, possibly incorporating elements they had picked up from wrestling traditions in the British Isles. Icelandic glíma developed into a unique sport, described in the sagas as a show of strength and a source of entertainment. Icelandic folk tales feature many cases of glíma being used to defeat trolls and mythical creatures.
For centuries, glíma wrestlers’ grip was on each other’s trousers, but in 1905, the glíma belt was introduced, allowing wrestlers to have a firmer grip on each other. While the first competition for Grettir’s Belt was held in 1906, national championships have been held even longer – nearly uninterrupted since 1888.
and competes for UÍA. She started to practise glíma when she was 11 years old after her older cousin took her along to practice, but she says there aren’t many girls wrestling in Reyðarfjörður these days. She moved away many years ago, first to Akureyri, switching to judo because there was no one to practise glíma with, and then to Reykjavík for university, where she still lives. “We’re a group of four that meets regularly to practise together in Reykjavík. Two of us are from Reyðarfjörður, one from Ísafjörður, and one from Mývatn.” Kristín won Freyja’s Chain in 2018. Since then, one championship was cancelled due to COVID, and the other two were won by South Icelander Jana Lind Ellertsdóttir. “We’ve been competing against each other forever and basically took turns winning at all of the primary school competitions and in recent years at all the adult tournaments,” Kristín says, describing a pattern I’ve already heard today.
The competition in the women’s division turns out to be fairly even. Each match lasts two minutes, so the competition progresses quickly and energetically, and the fighting is constant. Very little time is given between matches. With such a small group of competitors, some wrestlers have to fight a new opponent every few minutes and barely have time to catch their breath.
With a victory in the last bout, Kristín secures Freyja’s Chain for a second time, with four and a half victories – one tie more than the runner-up. “It wasn’t until after the second-last match that I felt I could do it, that I was getting there,” Kristín tells me after the competition. She plans to give it another go next year. “It would be fun to win a few years in a row, of course, but let’s start by taking one year at a time.” Kristín also won another award at the end of the competition, the annual award for “Most Beautiful Glíma,” granted to the most graceful wrestler. “It means that you step gracefully between manoeuvres and into them. It’s very much about doing the right thing at the right time. This sport is all about balance. You have to keep your balance no matter what,” Kristín explains.
She has faith that glíma will continue to be practised by future generations. “There’s a good group of young people who are competing in their first National Glíma Championship, a strong group of boys from here in Reyðarfjörður, and a good group of girls from Dalir. It’s on the rise again.”
There is no break or halftime in the National Glíma Competition, so now it’s the men’s turn. The men – clad in leather-soled trainers, sleeveless spandex jerseys, and black pants under their glíma belts – are ready. The vast majority
“THE GLÍMA KING ISN’T USED TO SWEEPING THE FLOOR.”
Everyone competes against everyone else, regardless of size, weight, or age.
are bearded and could pass as grown-up farmers, but most are between 16 and 20 and are competing in the National Championship for the first or second time.
All except two are wearing red-and-blue jerseys resembling a poor man’s Spiderman costume: the locals that compete for UÍA. Einar of Mývatn, who has held his focus throughout the entire warmup and the women’s tournament, is ready for action.
The championship organisers know how to build the tension and excitement, setting the schedule up so that Einar and Ásmundur fight in the last match of the tournament – the match that everyone expects will determine the winner. These two do not let other glíma wrestlers best them.
But a new generation of wrestlers threatens the status quo. Einar’s first step toward the much-coveted Belt of Grettir suddenly becomes a step backwards, when the 16-year-old Þórður Páll (who nevertheless looks 30) knocks him unexpectedly to the ground. The audience in the old Reyðarfjörður sports centre breaks into cheers. Þórður’s teammates scream and hug each other. Einar is not amused. In order to have a chance at beating Ásmundur and winning Grettir’s Belt, he has to beat all the other competitors first.
Einar wants his name on Grettir’s Belt, next to his father’s and brother’s. Though Ásmundur is bigger and heavier, his brothers have taught him that it’s technique, and not size, that matters. “I’m between them in size. My brother Pétur is very agile and fine-boned but still strong as a bull. In his competing years, he was around 85 kilos, while my brother Jón is much bigger and more broad-shouldered and weighs 110 kilos. Yet it’s Pétur who’s the nine-time Glíma King.” Einar is determined to beat Ásmundur for Grettir’s Belt. “I’ve felled him a few times, but we either both went down, or I was disqualified.”
The result of the championship seems to be fixed after the first match. It’s been smooth sailing for Ásmundur, who fells one opponent after another without much trouble. Einar follows close behind, already a victory short. He’s still got a chance: if he beats Ásmundur in the final match, they finish with equal points and have to fight a second match to determine the champion. But would he even be able to beat the Glíma King twice in a row? Einar stays focused: there’s always hope. The thumps of backs hitting the wood floor echo through the old sports centre. Children compete on mats, but there’s
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no such mercy granted to adult competitors, and it can be truly painful to lose a bout. Þórður, the wrestler who beat Einar in his first match of the championship, is felled and hits his head hard. He tries to start the next match but appears to have a mild concussion and is forced to resign from the championship. That means that all of his match results are wiped out – and Einar is suddenly even with Ásmundur. The tension builds as the final match approaches. An ambulance is called for Þórður.
Ásmundur is not worried. In a half superhero costume, with a glíma belt stretched over his hips and thighs, he’s one-part oversized teddy bear, one-part Mr. Incredible. His girlfriend, Marín Laufey, encourages him from the stands. She knows the sport well: she’s practised it herself since she was a kid and won Glíma Queen five times, the same number of times Ásmundur has won Glíma King. This is the second championship in a row in which she hasn’t been able to compete: first, because she was pregnant with their son, Glíma Prince Kristján Sverrir, now seven months old; and this year, because she’s still getting back in shape. She plans to make a strong comeback next year.
The pair met through glíma as teenagers but always lived
on opposite ends of the country. Now they’ve both finished their studies in Reykjavík and moved to Reyðarfjörður together. “We started talking on a competition trip in 2015 in Scotland when we were around 20. The chairman of the Icelandic Glíma Association saw to it that we got together,” Ásmundur laughs. “It was a very determined act on his part; we thank him for it now. He was in the breeding business: figured we were sure to produce exceptional glíma offspring!”
Einar knows a thing or two about family pressure, but it takes more than blood to maintain a glíma tradition. “There
“HE WAS IN THE BREEDING BUSINESS: FIGURED WE WERE SURE TO PRODUCE EXCEPTIONAL GLÍMA OFFSPRING!”
THINGS DISTINGUISH GLÍMA FROM OTHER TYPES OF TRADITIONAL WRESTLING.
THE UPRIGHT STANCE
Glíma wrestlers must always stand erect, unlike in other traditional wrestling practices such as sumo.
STEPPING
Glíma is characterised by a clockwise, back and forth step, something like a box step, intended to create opportunities for offence and defence and prevent a stalemate.
THE CODE OF CONDUCT
There is a strict code of conduct in glíma that bans níð, or forcefully pushing an opponent to the ground. A match is won by throwing or tripping an opponent so they fall to the ground gracefully.
was always a group of young and impressive men meeting and wrestling in the Mývatn area, preparing for competitions and the like. I was by far the youngest, then the others started getting older and stopped practising, and no young people joined,” Einar says. “Now I’m the only glíma wrestler in the whole Þingeyjarsýsla region.”
It’s time for the final match. Einar versus Ásmundur. Two minutes.
“Stigið!”
Cheers and yells fill the stadium: this is Ásmundur’s home turf, and the audience is on his side. With a throw known as a klofbragð, he fells Einar, who manages to hold himself off the ground with his hands: as long as the torso, head, thighs, and upper arms don’t touch the ground, it’s not a defeat. Glíma is all about balance.
The clock ticks. They take their positions again, grabbing each other’s belts tightly, and step, each muscle ready for action. Numerous throws, trips, and lifts are available to them: hælkrókur, krækja, hnéhnykkur, sniðglíma, mjaðmahnykkur, klofbragð, and so on. Ásmundur employs the klofbragð again, felling Einar, to the audience’s great delight.
The time is stopped, and the three referees compare notes. They flash a yellow card. Ásmundur is charged with níð, forcefully knocking his opponent to the ground, forbidden in
glíma. Another penalty would mean a red card and losing the match – and the championship. It’s an opportunity for Einar, who is still defending well, but Ásmundur is stronger and fells Einar for the third time. Elbow on the ground, Einar holds himself up in a side plank: fantastic defence.
The two minutes are quickly running out. If they end with a tie, Einar and Ásmundur will have the same number of points and will have to fight a second match to determine the championship winner, this time with no time limit. The one time Ásmundur managed to beat Einar’s older brother, the nine-time Glíma King Pétur, it was in such a match. “I got him huffing and puffing in the ninth minute. I don’t think he ever competed again after that.”
Ásmundur loses focus for a moment and steps into Einar’s manoeuvre, an outside hook with the left leg. Ásmundur loses his balance and hits the ground. Einar also loses his, falling on top of Ásmundur but immediately springing up in celebration. The time is stopped, and the referees put their heads together once more. Has Einar’s long-awaited dream become a reality, or does Ásmundur still have a chance of keeping Grettir’s Belt?
One minute feels like ten while the referees deliberate. Another yellow card is lifted: this time in Einar’s direction. He had pushed Ásmundur out of his defensive position. Einar’s disappointment is palpable, but Ásmundur is determined to not be felled again, for in his words, “The Glíma King isn’t used to sweeping the floor.” As soon as the whistle is blown,
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Ásmundur uses one of his favourite manoeuvres, which he’d been saving until now: hælkrók. “It’s a question of dexterity, not strength or power,” he explains. Einar is defenceless, and both of them know it’s over. Einar crouches on the ground while Ásmundur gestures to the clapping audience in the stands, a smile on his face.
“Ásmundur wins!” calls the head referee, Atli Már Sigmarsson, defeatedly. “That was a very difficult competition,” he tells me later, over a slice of cake. “Hopefully, it all went right in the end.” Marín Laufey celebrates her man’s sixth national title. “Now he’s overtaken me,” the five-time Glíma Queen says, grinning. Their plan for the evening is to take it easy, go out to eat or maybe to Vök Baths since the Glíma Prince is with a babysitter tonight. Life, like glíma, is all about balance.
A folktale from Northwest Iceland tells of a group of men travelling along the coast, when they suddenly heard voices emanating from a haunted cave, where the tide was said to have deposited drowned sailors’ corpses. Suddenly, a ghostly voice emerged from the opening, reciting:
“I’m bored of lying here in hell;
It’s better home in Helgafell
Where dance and glíma dwell.”
“I’LL WIN THIS BELT IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO.”
Words by Ragnar Tómas Hallgrímsson Photography by Golli
Suspended on a wall in the Reykjavík Art Museum, there’s a cardboard plaque displaying, among other things, the exposed penis of one of Iceland’s best-known visual artists.
A major figure of the narrative-figuration movement in the 1960s, Erró hosted a “happening” at the American Centre in Paris in 1963, in which he satirised US conservative senator Barry Goldwater by taking a whizz through a network of tubes.
There’s an affinity between “Gold Water” and Donald Trump’s “pee tape,” which allegedly shows the former President (and possible urophiliac) looking on as two prostitutes at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton “make water” on a bed formerly slept in by the Obamas.
The very zenith of spite.
As I contemplate the work and its urinary web of associations, at an exhibition providing “a comprehensive overview of the artist’s colourful career” (as noted in a museum pamphlet), Nathalía Druzin Halldórsdóttir walks over and announces that “Erró is ready,” before escorting me up the stairs toward the museum’s café. As Communication and Marketing Manager, she has advice:
“Reporters from local media networks were here last week,” she reveals, “and both of them asked Erró the same question: whether he had a ‘favourite piece’ at the exhibition; you could sort of see his eyes glaze over.”
“I’ll try to be more original,” I say.
“Also,” she adds, “he doesn’t hear very well.”
“Does he have a preferred ear, right or left?”
She shakes her head.
At the café, Erró is seated on a chair flanked by two men: on his right, art historian Gunnar Kvaran – whose wife Danielle is the world’s foremost expert on all things Erró – and who is sitting with his back half-turned to our setup, as if trying to afford some measure of privacy; and on his left, a man who would later hold up an Erró-inspired skateboard deck and declare that his son would be “thrilled.”
These are not the ideal conditions under which to conduct an interview.
Taking my seat across from Erró, I find myself leaning towards him and raising my voice as if yelling across an abyss: “I was told not to ask about your favourite piece,” I say, enunciating. “Aren’t you tired of these interviews?”
“Tired!?” he yells back, as if I had made a very general
inquiry into his overall levels of energy. As if my journalistic chops consisted mainly of commenting on a person’s degree of wakefulness.
“Of these endless interviews and questions,” I clarify, raising my voice even further. Like I’m at a rock concert.
“No, no,” he answers doggedly. He’s got long ears with lobes reminiscent of melting Dalí clocks and slicked-back grey hair that evokes a former video store owner in Iceland, once accused of egregious doings.
“It comes with the territory,” he explains.
I ask him if there’s some question that annoys him more than others, but Erró, still processing my first query, ignores the second: “If you want to know more, then you can speak to Gunnar; and his wife, Danielle – she knows twice as much as him!”
Everyone laughs.
Everything is subject
“As people age,” I philosophise, “they tend to become more pessimistic about the world. More negative. Do you feel that society has taken a turn for the worse?”
He thinks for a while.
“I thought everything was okay,” he says, trying to arrange his thoughts. “Until the Russians lost their minds!”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Yes,” he repeats. There’s a pause.
On the subject of Russian madness, Erró recalls exhibiting in Kyiv many years ago, alongside two other painters based in France, and finding that the Ukrainians were “so smart.” So fun and lively.
“What are your thoughts on Ukraine, generally?” I ask. “Does art have a role in any of this?”
“I’ve just about stopped with the political paintings,” he observes. “Maybe because not much has happened over the past years. But if you go back fifty years, I think you’ll find that my paintings provide a rather comprehensive account of world events. From NASA to Sarajevo, to Mao Zedong to Gaddafi. Uhh!?”
That “Uhh!?” is Erró’s way of at once affirming his statement and gauging agreement. Like the way Americans say “you know!?”
“My grandfather was born in 1931," I begin to say. “He was a great fan of yours,” I add, trying to contrive a logical connection. (It occurs to me, later on, that I have no idea if my grandfather liked Erró or not.)
“He died last year, during the pandemic,” I continue, “and he had this exact same sweater you’re wearing. It makes me think of him. This sweater … not that there’s any question that goes along with this observation, just that it inspires fond memories.”
Erró appears to be listening but doesn't say anything. Perhaps because he hasn’t heard me or perhaps because I have succeeded, rather tactlessly, in evoking the idea of an “expiration date,” which, in his case, and by way of natural law, must loom somewhere just beyond the horizon.
“What was COVID like for you?” I ask, attempting to regurgitate my foot.
“Uuh!?”
This “Uuh!?” has a more interrogative tone, indicating that he does not understand.
“What was COVID like for you?” I say, again raising my voice.
“Tónlist? ” (Music in Icelandic.)
“COVID,” Gunnar Kvaran interjects. “The pandemic.”
“Uhh!?” Erró repeats.
“Covid. La pandémie."
“Uhh!?”
“Cóvíd!” Kvaran says again, slower this time, and with a heavy French accent.
“Comics?” Erró offers, which seems inevitable, given his oeuvre.
“Nei, Cóvíd. La maladie.”
“Ahhh!” Erró says, finally comprehending.
“They injected me four times,” he says. “Twice outside Paris, and one time in Paris – but I was given a double dose. I had a rendezvous in the Centre Pompidou directly afterwards, and when I arrived, all I saw was … uhhh …” He tries to find the words.
“Fog,” Gunnar Kvaran explains, which feels like an apt description for the state of our conversation.
Erró has resided in France since the latter half of the 20th century. Despite turning 90 this year, he still spends long days at the studio, attributing his vigour (someone once claimed that he slept with a pencil between his toes during his school years) to the fact that he begins every morning by walking down 120 steps, roughly the length of the tree that Baudelaire planted outside his building, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the 19th century.
When asked what it’s like visiting Reykjavík these days, if there’s “a noticeable change,” Erró, quite contrary to
one's theory of old age breeding pessimism, observes that everything “seems to be improving.”
“The people seem happier than before," he says. "Maybe it’s just me; I read somewhere that Icelanders are the thirdhappiest nation in the world.”
I start to say something pertinent about the Finns when Erró interrupts to offer a rather peculiar explanation for the general uplift in the national mood:
“There were fewer tourists – fewer Romanian gleeeðikonur (an Icelandic word for prostitutes, literally “happy women”). Uhh!?”
Everyone laughs.
“Yes… I guess there’s been a real increase in that department,” I offer, not knowing why I am saying what I am saying or where he’s going with all of this.
“I heard that a jet landed at Keflavík Airport carrying 30 prostitutes from Romania,” he remarks. “The oldest was 19 years old, and the youngest was 14 and a half.”
“Really?” I say, bemused.
“Yes.”
“And this happened recently?”
“Yes, recently.”
Gunnar Kvaran laughs loudly, as if privy to some inside joke.
“Did this have something to do with the recent sale of Íslandsbanki?” I say, trying fruitlessly to insinuate myself into their humour.
There’s a thing that people do around old folks who are hard of hearing: weary from all the yelling, they turn to some adjacent party and begin talking about the person as if they weren’t there. As if they were a kind of chatbot that they could momentarily ignore without any emotional repercussions. I’ve always found this a rather ignoble tendency, but, in the current circumstances, one which I am unable to resist.
I turn to Gunnar Kvaran and ask him about Erró and the current exhibition while the man himself assumes an ambiguous Mona Lisa face and listens.
“The exhibition occupies the entire building,” Gunnar begins. “It’s predicated largely on the works Erró has gifted to the Reykjavík Art Museum beginning 30 years ago. Today, the
He’s one of the pioneers of the figurative-art movement that emerged in the ’60s and ’70s.
museum has a great collection of his works – like the Munch Museum in Oslo. There are very few museums like this in the world, which offer such an in-depth, wide-ranging collection of the works of a single artist. In this current exhibition, you can follow Erró’s career from beginning to end.
“And the title: The Explosiveness of Art, where does that come from?”
“It refers to Erró’s inclination to work with strong images. He’s not only good at finding powerful images but also at putting them together and making new explosions. It emphasises that he’s one of the pioneers of the figurative-art movement that emerged in the ’60s and ’70s, which became a part of pop art, but which is also a form of narrative art, which is where politics enters into it.”
“It’s good what Erró said earlier,” Kvaran continues, “his narrative art relates stories from recent world history. Whether it was Vietnam or Baghdad or Asian prostitutes, there are all kinds of stories into which he has delved. Sci-fi, popular culture, politics, literature. It’s quite a comprehensive, historical fresco that he has created. When we walk through
the exhibition, we can do so on aesthetic grounds, but we can also walk through the history of the 20th century.”
In an interview in the ’70s, Erró maintained that much of his art was the result of “an immediate emotional reaction to a particular event.” To anyone who has not dedicated their life to visual art, this idea must seem peculiar: responding emotionally to events with imagery. This habit may also be why he dislikes giving linear, banal answers to interview questions and, as Gunnar Kvaran would go on to reveal, why he tries to be creative, paradoxical even, in his responses.
“What’s the best way to get him talking?” I ask Gunnar, still doing that thing we do around old folks.
“Well,” Gunnar replies. “It’s difficult to say. But what you’ve touched upon, the politics: this is a person who’s been fascinated by politics and world events for the past 60 or 70 years. And then this new catastrophe occurs, Ukraine.”
“Erró,” Kvaran says suddenly, turning to face the artist. “You haven’t considered doing some collages in relation to
“When we walk through the exhibition, we can do so on aesthetic grounds, but we can also walk through the history of the 20th century.”
“I saw an unkindness of ravens. It was extraordinary. They were standing in a ring – a perfect circle. And then one of the birds jumped into the middle and began to spin.”
Ukraine?”
Erró pauses a bit, and then it’s as if some part of him rises from the chair, snatches an easel out of thin air, and begins to paint.
“There was snow. Everything was white. In Kirkjubæjarklaustur [the town where he grew up in South Iceland]. I saw an unkindness of ravens. It was extraordinary. They were standing in a ring – a perfect circle. And then one of the birds jumped into the middle and began to spin.”
He takes his stained white handkerchief and begins turning it slowly on the table.
“And then the raven stopped. And as he stopped, the birds turned on one of the other ravens, utterly mutilating him. I visited the same spot the following morning, and all that was left were a few bones. I don’t know what went on in this conference of ravens, but it was incredible.”
“So you’ve spotted some connection between the ravens and Ukraine?” I ask, wondering whether the mutilated raven
symbolised Vladimir Putin, being ganged up on by the west following a criminal invasion; or Ukraine, being torn asunder by the ghost of the former Soviet Union.
But Erró hasn’t concluded his painting. The contrast between the white of the snow and the black of the ravens inspires another peculiar connection.
“My stepdad,” he says. “I was with him and my cousin. We were on, isn’t it called, a fyllerí ?” (Icelandic for a bout of heavy drinking.)
“Yes.”
“And I asked him what he needed most. And the first thing he said was that he had never slept with a Black woman – and that he had never seen the Alps.”
“This is turning into an Erró painting,” Kvaran says.
Vigdís Hafliðadóttir is shuffling nervously in the foyer of the restaurant Nauthóll.
Inhabiting a baggy brown shirt, sleeves partly rolled up, she eavesdrops as Valgarð Már Jakobsson, a teacher at Mosfellsbær Junior College (FMOS), informs his colleagues in an adjoining room that alcohol “will now be served;” Vigdís, privy to this information, pops her blonde head across the dividing wall in delight.
“That makes me very happy!” she declares with a straight face, acknowledging that her job just got easier. Although familiarity with her set counteracts the nerves, she’s never quite sure how the audience is going to respond; like all comics, she’s not immune to bombing.
As Valgarð instructs the faculty to proceed into the main dining hall where “an entertainer will perform,” Vigdís points two thumbs at her person and mouths “that’s me! ” –eyes wild with exaggerated excitement.
When everyone has settled in, Valgarð utters a few words of introduction before passing the mic to Vigdís, who takes her place between some tables near the back.
“It’s great being here,” she begins, making eye contact with as many onlookers as possible. “I’d like to start by saying a few words about myself because the other day I was performing at what will remain an anonymous Ministry – the Ministry of Transport [laughter from the crowd] – where I was hired as a surprise guest.”
“‘Ladies and gentlemen,’” Vigdís says, parroting an enthusiastic MC, “‘please welcome our surprise guest: Vigdís Hafliðadóttir!’ And they couldn’t have received a better surprise – because no one had any idea who I was!” The audience laughs.
Vigdís explains that her foray into stand-up comedy began with first place at a university contest. As this happened in 2020, however, it might as well not have happened.
“I always wanted to become an actress,” she goes on, occasionally looking down at her feet. “I joined drama club in junior college but soon realised that acting wasn’t the
most practical of pursuits … and so I went to Sweden to study ballad singing.”
A momentary silence follows this punchline, owing, in all likelihood, to the obscurity of the concept of “ballad singing,” but when the audience realises that this is where they’re supposed to laugh, they do
“... which wasn’t particularly practical either,” Vigdís continues. “After that, I said to myself, ‘Okay, let’s get serious here’ – which was when I enrolled at the philosophy department at the University of Iceland.”
The audience appears to be enjoying themselves, with the exception of one man, who’s got a reddish beard and a heavy brow, and who is sitting not far from where Vigdís is standing. As she observes how studying philosophy is a great way to prepare for unemployment, the man continues to sit with a face of stone.
“Having won the university stand-up contest,” Vigdís recounts, “my friends encouraged me to do more of it. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, doing stand-up comedy might be terrible – but it can't be any worse than watching it!”
The crowd laughs; the man with the red beard does not.
“Which is not to say that I don't like stand-up comedy,” Vigdís goes on, “just that I'm such an enabler; whenever I'm in the audience, I’m keenly aware that here’s a person who wants other people to laugh, and if other people don’t laugh, then that person will become sad. And if that happens, well – that’s my fault.” Her face sours with earnestness.
As the red-bearded man shifts in his seat, apparently unamused, Vigdís, drawing on her eclectic life experience, suddenly segues into plumbing.
“On the subject of enabling, I’m at the stage of my life where I’m trying to celebrate my flaws; co-dependency leads you to such interesting places,” she says. “One evening, when I was contemplating the future, I was once again visited by a familiar thought: ‘I have to do something practical’ … and so I registered to study plumbing at the Technical College.”
The man’s ears perk up; his stolidity no longer seems
“I’M AT THE STAGE OF MY LIFE WHERE I’M TRYING TO CELEBRATE MY FLAWS.”
“I SOON REALISED THAT ACTING WASN’T THE MOST PRACTICAL OF PURSUITS … AND SO I WENT TO SWEDEN TO STUDY BALLAD SINGING.”
quite as impregnable.
“A few weeks later, having mostly forgotten about my application, I was surprised to discover an email in my inbox – notifying me that I had been accepted.” She pauses.
“‘Well, I’ve got to take responsibility here,’” she says with all the gravitas of an ancient philosopher. “‘After all, it was me who had enrolled; and someone had obviously taken the time to prepare this class schedule for me; and besides, it’s very important to send a message to society that women belong in this profession.’”
As she goes on to enumerate the various tentative names for her future plumbing-cum-philosophy business, the red-bearded man cannot help but chuckle.
Vigdís thanks her audience and walks off stage.
“That went well,” I remark, as we speed away from Nauthólsvík.
“Yeah, I guess,” Vigdís replies with dejected nonchalance, slouching in the passenger seat next to me. “The sound wasn’t great, but otherwise, yeah, I’d say that went okay.”
I learn that Vigdís’ definition of success differs from
that of the casual observer. The feeling of becoming “bummed out,” she observes, is only avoided if things go “extremely well” – a huge audience and a standing ovation, say.
“That’s the only time that I’m content,” she continues. “But right now, I’m like…” she turns her head, diva-like, in mock disappointment, lowers her voice and sighs: “that wasn’t marvellous.”
Despite what she perceived as an underwhelming response, the gig at Nauthóll was far from her worst experience in stand-up. That designation belongs to a 4:00-PM retirement party at the headquarters of a local bank. The word Húllumhæ (a silly Icelandic word meaning, essentially, “party”) had been cast onto the meeting-room screen, but the mood, contrary to the projected message, was lifeless. The sound was terrible. And no one laughed.
“I performed the same set later that evening,” she recalls, “and it was completely different. Totally different vibes. People are different. I don’t know …”
The lessons that comedians must internalise have, for Vigdís, been expedited by her induction into the popular stand-up troupe VHS, following a successful “guest spot” in the summer of 2020.
“That must have been quite the honour?” I ask, as we drive through Kópavogur.
“If it weren’t for them, I probably would have quit – or I definitely wouldn’t be so comfortable. They work really hard. And they have a much more blasé attitude than me. I tend to overthink things: ‘Are we really going to charge people to come? Is that a good idea?’” she asks, with a kind of Tina Fey humility. “‘Yes, Vigdís, we have to charge them,’ they say.”
I ask why she had entered the comedy competition in the first place, whether it had been at her friends’ encouragement.
“Yeah, I suppose I had sort of entertained the idea out loud. And then they urged me to take part. That’s how most things in my life begin: As a joke.”
The car stops.
The muted rays of the sun twinkle down a quaint chicken coop on Austurgata.
Across the street, Vigdís –having now exchanged one hat for another – is lugging musical equipment in the direction of Austurgata 36: an imposing white house of solid concrete, whose owners have offered it up as a venue for the Heima í Hafnarfirði concert series.
The elder of two daughters, Vigdís was raised in the Laugardalur neighbourhood of Reykjavík by two loving academics. In her BA thesis in Philosophy, she recalls being inculcated with the mantra “duty first, fun later,” which, in more concrete terms, often meant “violin first, TV later.” She now performs with the band FLOTT, drawing on what she learned during her time studying ballad-singing in Sweden.
Founded in 2020, FLOTT (a vague Icelandic catch-all having a variety of meanings: smart, cool, sharp, etc.), like most of Vigdís’ projects, began as a kind of joke. To the band members’ surprise, the group quickly accumulated a strong following and was awarded Best Newcomer at this year’s Icelandic Music Awards.
With the same air of jittery restlessness previously on display at Nauthóll, Vigdís buzzes about Austurgata 36’s beautiful, bright living room, which opens onto a similarly modern kitchen. The owners of the house – a good-looking, affluent-seeming couple, in their late thirties or early forties – are proudly, though somewhat deferentially, hovering around their kitchen island, trying to ensure that everyone feels at home; a slightly fidgety Vigdís would suggest that they're not entirely successful.
As she helps her bandmates set up the equipment, the
audience slowly gathers ‘round. Someone brings a missing mic cord; Vigdís throws her hands up and exclaims, “Yay!” – only to realise that she’s now misplaced the microphone. Rifling through the pillows on the living-room couch, right next to the makeshift stage, she apologises to a middleaged man who had ensconced himself on the sofa – before eventually finding the mic in her bag.
All the requisite wires being attached, FLOTT performs an impromptu sound check – involving a few hilarious adlibs on Vígdís’ part – which serves to attract more people into the house; those who had been loitering outside on the street, some of them sipping beer from their backpacks, now hurry inside to occupy the few remaining spaces. Among recent arrivals is former mayor of Hafnarfjörður Guðmundur Árni Stefánsson, who strolls inside and takes his place near the wall by the entrance. A sun wall sconce directly behind his head gives him the appearance of a saint. It’s less than a month till the elections, and, much to the annoyance of the current mayor, St. Guðmundur is vying for his former office.
As she works her way through the band’s catalogue, Vigdís takes the time to address the audience between songs, mixing stand-up comedy with musical performance. At one point, she introduces a song as “an ode to the subjunctive mood,” which is the kind of preamble you get when you combine a philosophy student with a ballad singer with a stand-up comic.
She boasts a singular voice – high-pitched, svelte, charming – which, if one understands correctly, is a product of the ballad-singing philosophy: a person should sing with their own voice as opposed to adjusting to accepted standards of beauty. Not Tom Waits, but whatever else resides on the other end of that metaphorical spectrum.
The concert culminates with FLOTT’s performance of Mér er drull, with which everyone in the crowd is obviously quite familiar; it was chosen Pop Song of the Year at the 2022 Icelandic Music Awards. As the audience cheers and sways, Vigdís, in her heart of hearts, wishes they would sit still and listen very carefully to her lyrics.
A bald-headed priest and coiner of hit-and-miss neologisms is sitting at a table in the crepuscular cellar of Iceland’s National Theatre. Above him, on stage, Vigdís – dressed in black sweatpants, a blue sweater, and white sneakers – is trying desperately to console her distraught husband.
As the proprietor-cum-curator of a phallological
“I TEND TO OVERTHINK THINGS.”
museum, her partner has just presented his most remarkable exhibit, the elephantine penis of a Blue Whale, and has had his frail ego torn asunder by the unimpressed reception of two women. Sobbing loudly in the corner of the room, he declares that he’s a complete failure. “No one likes my exhibit!” he screams.
“That’s nonsense, dear!” Vigdís responds. “Everyone loves the museum! No one has collected as many penises as you!”
“They hate it!” he yells back. “They laughed in my face. And I had just regaled them with a very lengthy explication of a whale cock.”
“Don’t worry about them!” she shoots back. “Besides, you’ve always stood by my side. Like that time that I opened …” She tries to come up with something clever. “A small …” The words are elusive. “Coffeehouse …” Still nothing. “That sold …”
“Coffee!” her husband interjects.
“Yes … coffee,” Vigdís says, slowly, trying not to laugh at the inanity of the concept.
As the audience cheers, another actor pounces onto stage, pretending that he’s a patron of her humdrum café: “Uhhh, so you only serve coffee?” he inquires.
“Yes,” Vigdís replies.
“So no tea then?”
“No,” she responds. Her face sours, and her husband rushes through the doors. “Baby, are you crying!?”
Vigdís begins to sob uncontrollably: “All they want is tea!”
He tries to allay her misery – and then asks the obvious question: “But, baby. Why don’t you just serve coffee and tea?”
“Because I thought dealing exclusively in coffee was a grand idea, and I don’t want to let on that I’m so stupid!”
The audience erupts in laughter.
“Sometimes, the ideas don’t come quick enough,” Vigdís explains, sitting across from me at the coffeehouse Kaffibrennslan on Laugavegur – where they do serve tea.
Dissecting her recent performance with Improv Iceland, she observes that the ideas that are born on stage “aren’t always great,” but that that’s not always a bad thing.
“It’s about listening,” she goes on. “About creating patterns; given that my husband had just been wrecked by his experience at the Phallological Museum, it made sense that we’d mirror that ordeal in the coffeehouse.”
Improv preceded stand-up comedy for Vigdís. She began taking classes in 2015 before auditioning for the Improv Iceland troupe five years later. Without being asked to earn her stripes with an apprentice group, she was inducted immediately.
“Which has never happened before,” she says in a self-deprecating voice. “But as opposed to viewing it as a testimony to my own talent, I began to obsess. ‘Why me? I’m not ready!’”
“I’M BECOMING MORE FAMILIAR TO PEOPLE. IT’S TAKEN ME A WHILE TO RECOGNISE THIS MYSELF.”
Referring to how seemingly ubiquitous her person has seemed of late – receiving prizes at the Icelandic Music Awards, for example, or hosting an election special with the state broadcaster – I ask if she feels like a sort of “man of the moment.”
“A friend of mine attended the VHS premiere last fall,” she begins, “where I was describing my trajectory after junior college: how lost I had been, studying philosophy, plumbing, etc. She was in the audience again this spring and mentioned how quickly that narrative seemed to have altered.”
“The material has become less relevant?” I inquire.
“I’m becoming more familiar to people, which is also true for FLOTT. But it’s taken me a while to recognise this myself; I’m emceeing an anniversary in a few days, and during the preparations, I suggested that I go undercover into a clothing store as a skit, but my friends were like, ‘No, I think people know you by now.’”
“And where are you now,” I ask, “as far as a narrative is concerned?”
“I feel, in some sense, like I’ve arrived. Or, well,” she corrects herself. “I feel like this path is being carved out for me. The ball’s rolling – and I’m playing along. ‘Okay, then, I guess I’m a stand-up comic,’” Vigdís says in a fatalistic sort of way. “It wasn’t something I decided. They’ve just made me into this thing, and…”
Startled by the passivity of her grammar, I cannot help but interrupt. “Wait, what do you mean? You’ve decided all of this yourself, right?”
“I decided to have a go at it,” she clarifies. “And then they’ve gone along with it.”
“But isn’t that, generally speaking, how it works?” I laugh.
“I guess.”
“There’s a picture emerging here, as you’ve noted, where everything with you begins as a kind of joke. But then, as it turns out, you’re very good at this thing you pretend to be joking about – and people take you seriously.”
“It’s a matter of give-and-take, I suppose. I create something, which wasn’t there before, and then people accept that thing. ‘Yes, this exists – and we want more of it.’”
“Most people would probably describe their success very differently. With a kind of pride, even. ‘I did this. I’m good at this,’ and so on.”
“I’ve always been a bit mousy. Uncomfortable with titles. When I’m making jokes somewhere, someone will interject, ‘Yes, as you know, she’s a stand-up comedian.’ And I reply, ‘Well, I’m more of a singer.’ And then I’ll be singing somewhere, and someone will say, ‘Yes, as you know, she’s a singer,’ but I’ll be like, ‘Well, I’m actually more of a comic.’ It’s a mechanism for evading responsibility, I suppose. I just find it hard to accept that I’m part of some group that, just a few months ago, seemed so distant.”
“Does this have something to do with being a former student of philosophy?”
“Well, research has shown that studying philosophy deals a fatal blow to one’s confidence,” she laughs. “Because
you grow so convinced of your own ignorance. I know nothing. I am nothing.”
She laughs heartily, blue eyes wide open.
“I don’t want to come across as cocky,” she continues, “Because I see all of my own flaws. I know what I was doing right before I came here: I was screaming in panic having lost my keys and struggling to do my own make-up; I’m a complete mess. ‘Singers, well, that’s Sigríður Thorlacius. Pop stars, well that’s GDRN. I’m just a girl who sometimes sings. Comics, well that’s Ari Eldjárn. Saga Garðarsdóttir. Me? I just tell the occasional joke.”
To put all of this in perspective, Vigdís points out that a few days after winning an Icelandic Music Award, she struggled to play He’s Got the Whole World on the piano.
“I just started taking lessons,” she explains. “Being an eternal novice serves to bring one back to Earth quite quickly.”
“Do you feel you’ve changed?”
“I don’t think so. I feel better, generally speaking, in my own skin…” Vigdís continues to talk as I sit and listen. She pushes back against the extremes of cancel culture, expresses optimism at our collective ability to learn, and swears casual allegiance to Aristotle’s golden mean.
Having shadowed her for the past few weeks, pored over old interviews, glanced at her BA essay in philosophy, and generally contemplated her person as an almost abstract entity, I am left with the feeling that my strongest intuition about life has been confirmed: That life is a process of discovery, of shuffling through one perspective after another, and bringing what one has gleaned to bear on the next. If this process can teach us anything about life, it is that committing too fully to any particular perspective is unwise. The most certain sign that we are making progress is that our emotions begin to settle.
We are less anxious about our place in the world. Less concerned with what others may think of us. Less eager to evangelise about our particular truth. Less judgmental.
Less afraid.
Several years ago, Auður Jónsdóttir wrote a book. Published in 2015, it feels like a lifetime ago. Social reform, honesty revolutions, and a pandemic have passed since then, making it feel more like just under a century than a decade ago. One of the people who read Quake right when it came out was Tinna Hrafnsdóttir. “As soon as I read it, it spoke to me deeply,” she tells me. She immediately reached out to the author and her publisher to inquire about the rights. “This happens more often than it used to, that people request the film rights,” Auður notes. “I’d gone through complicated things with film rights before, so I wanted to give the book a little time to be out on its own. To exist as an independent work of art.” But Tinna didn’t let the book go. She was primarily known as an actor, still inexperienced as a director. “I had never made a full-length feature film before,”
Words by Gréta Sigríður Einarsdóttir
Tinna admits. “It was a risk for them all to take a bet on me.” Auður had a good feeling, but the book was a personal one, and she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish control. “Because Tinna’s interest was so sincere, I went to a good friend of mine who is a fortune teller in Hveragerði. I sought her advice. She said there was so much light around Tinna and that all she made would become light.” Tinna, delighted to have been entrusted with the story, got right to work on the script. “I took my time doing it because it was a big responsibility, and one I didn’t take on lightly. Adapting a story from a book to a film is a long and arduous process.”
Quake, Tinna’s first feature-length film is now set for a theatrical release in North America, Sweden, and the UK.
Photography by Golli and Lilja Jóns
Auður’s novel centres on a woman waking up from a grand mal seizure, having lost her memory. As a single parent, she feels unable to let on how much she has forgotten because she fears losing custody of her child. As she starts digging into her past, she finds more than she bargained for. For Auður, the story begins with past violence and how we rewrite our lives to make them fit to what we believe is right. “I’d read an article in a German science journal by a neurologist that stated that we were characters of our own creation. We adapt our memories to the capabilities of our personality.” Now that she’s seen Tinna’s take on the story, she can muse on their different approaches. “You have to strip the story down a lot for a film. A film’s narrative has to be a lot simpler than in a book. That’s why the novel is such a great format. It’s the only art form where you can let yourself take any stories you want and mix them all up. When a story gets to the theatre or a film, it has to have a really definitive voice; which thread of the narrative are you taking on?” Even though they share a storyline, her novel and Tinna’s film are entirely different. Auður tells me that she had no influence on the filmmaking process. “I told Tinna she
should do it completely in her own way. When you’re creating a piece of art, you have to have your own unique take on it.”
For Tinna, finding a clear throughline in the intricate plot of the novel wasn’t an issue. “There were so many things that I wanted to keep, but then again, there were a lot of things I had to cut out in order to strengthen the story that I wanted to highlight in the film. The book has more threads to the storyline than the film does. I had to choose which one of them I wanted to highlight. I had to find the core of the story that I wanted to tell.” Again, she went with her gut, the part of the story that spoke the loudest to her. “In this case, it was her love for her son. That she wants to become a whole person in order to be there for her son was what spoke the loudest to me. It’s what we all want.” There’s more to it than simply taking care of the child. It’s a matter of saving the child from generational trauma.
In some ways, working through your own trauma is the most selfless thing you can do, as you’re taking on the challenging work of self-discovery in order to provide better conditions for your children. Tinna went on: “I wanted to touch on the chain reaction that many of our generation are combatting these days. Trying to be open and honest about events and experiences we’ve had. About the things that shaped us in our childhood and our lives. How we can face these things and work on them in order to stop our own trauma from affecting how we raise our children. So, they don’t have to deal with what happened to you as well.” In Quake, the older generation is silent on some family secrets, while the main character is trying to get things out in the open. This ties back to a mindset shift that’s currently taking place. “I think we’re stepping away from the closed-off, silencing mindset that many of us grew up with. Not just in our families but in society as a whole. People are much more open about things these days. It’s difficult, and it comes with growing pains, hurt feelings and sensitive topics. But sometimes, you just have to dive deep into your core and acknowledge that things aren’t great all the time.” Tinna states.
Auður’s books have long dealt with family secrets and generational trauma. It’s raised plenty of interest but a considerable number of eyebrows as well, especially early on in her career. To her, denial equals isolation. “It’s not a question of is there a family secret, but which one is it and where is it buried. When you write about these things, so many people tell you that it’s their story, we’re so similar in so many ways.” As the years have gone by, Auður finds less and less resistance to her writing. “The book came out
in 2015, and it was harder to tell the story back then. We’ve gone through such an awakening as a society. With each year that passes, it takes less effort to open up about these things. More people are listening without diminishing your experience.”
As Tinna was writing the script for the film, Icelandic society and the world as a whole was in upheaval over the first wave of #metoo. Much like Quake’s main character was forced to go through the painful process of rewriting her own narrative, writing the story of such a personal journey tugged at Tinna’s soul. “It was hard. I went through some lows when writing the script. Some deep lows. It’s a touching story, and just as I was writing it, the #metoo campaign was at its peak. Everyone was opening up and sharing their stories. People were taking sides, and stories were coming out in Facebook groups. There was a lot going on in society, and I was dealing with some events that have to do with silencing.” While Quake doesn’t deal with sexual abuse, it addresses the necessary pain involved in opening up about past trauma. “It was a purge and an awakening. It hit people hard at the time. But it was necessary and important. In every moment of reckoning, there is a struggle involved. It’s painful. And if it isn’t, it isn’t real, and you won’t get what you need.”
Healing from within
For Auður, the role of narrative in the healing process is fascinating. “In therapy, they ask you to tell your story, and there’s a good reason. It gives you the power to see things out for yourself and to acknowledge your role in what happened as well as other people’s role. It validates your experience and gives it space. The story itself is a healing process.” The talk turns to #metoo again, which in Iceland prompted a nationwide study on the traumatic history of women and its effect on their physical and mental wellbeing. “It’s not just that people are waking up to these things. We’re also learning so much more about them than we used to. We have better tools to understand our traumatic experiences and how trauma is passed down in some families. If you experienced trauma as a child and never had the chance to deal with it, there’s more risk of trauma as you grow older.”
As stories of trauma get shared more widely and openly, people also realise that there’s often logic behind irrational behaviour. “Because it’s so hard to understand. People need to know more about trauma and how it affects people so they can understand how to get the help they need. I’ve also heard experts say that it’s important to go through working through trauma in order to be able to let
go. It’s so interesting when we embody our trauma, and they start to control our reflexes. We can be another character than we could be if we hadn’t dealt with our trauma and learned to understand our own reactions. People can run into trauma in love, in life, in decision making, if it is always there, strumming in your subconscious.” For instance, there’s the urge to keep a secret hidden when opening up about it might start a healing process. “People do the strangest things without understanding it themselves. Speaking of reflexes, they’re often very counterintuitive. A woman of this generation, like so many others with buried trauma, has her way of making sure it stays that way. It’s her only way to keep her reality going. And that’s what family secrets were all about. No one could say anything because then it would all blow up. Keep a straight face and keep the family together. And it passed from generation to generation. I think there’s something to the idea that if you want to change the fate of your whole family, you should start with yourself. So you don’t pass it on. Secrets come with certain actions. Repression, shame, insecurity.”
For Tinna, it’s crucial to find a personal connection to what she’s writing about, no matter how hard it is to dive back into these feelings. “Even if the film is based on Auður’s book and I stay true to that core, there’s plenty of me in the script as well. How can there not be? My voice gets added to the work.” For Auður, authoring the book was deeply personal, requiring her to open up. Tinna says: “I am infinitely grateful to Auður for giving me this opportunity. I respect her deeply as an artist for doing it.” Such an act of letting go requires humility.
Tinna recognises that she has that ability now and that it is a product of her going through a traumatic experience herself and overcoming it. “In my case, I couldn’t always be this brave. I wasn’t always able to. I was shy and scared of other people’s opinions. But then I had to go through a massive personal challenge myself, I couldn’t get pregnant. For five years, I had infertility treatments, which is a really long time when you can practically hear your biological clock ticking.” Motherhood had always been her goal. In fact, she remembers a conversation on infertility with a friend years before she experienced it herself. “I distinctly remember telling her I could manage just about anything life would throw at me, except that. Not being able to become a mom, I couldn’t bear the thought.” After five years of infertility treatments, Tinna’s own personal miracle happened, and she had two healthy twin boys. “Sometimes, I think life put me in this situation. I needed this. I was so insecure before it happened. All the feelings I experienced during that period, all the fear and doubt that came along with it, proved to myself who I was and what I could do. I won’t give up no matter what. And to me, this was the greatest victory I could ever achieve. I don’t care if I could direct a Hollywood film starring Meryl Streep; this would still be my greatest feat. And when you get to that point of your greatest victory, all the losses you face become so much easier to deal with. I was filled with serenity. As for what I do, I can stand by my work if I do my best and put my heart into it. But if people don’t like it or if it isn’t going according to plan or doesn’t reach the peak I want it to, that’s OK too. Because I’ve already proven to myself what I’m capable of.”
The process of adapting the book to film took years, a lot of personal growth, and the process was slightly marred by the global pandemic. A twist of fate meant that the release of the film coincided with the American release date of Quake, translated by Meg Matich. The book she wrote several years ago is all of a sudden a massive part of her life again, and that has had some unexpected results. “I got back in emotional contact with it through the film. It really hit me when I wasn’t expecting it. Tinna and I went to New York to promote the film and the book, and so I started talking about the book like it came out yesterday. The book started taking more space in my life again, and it reignited feelings that I’d forgotten. A book is such a part of the era you write it in. I got
a little sensitive, which surprised me.” Memories resurfaced, and issues she believed she had resolved years ago reared their head again. “You think you’re done working through it. But it can get you when you least expect it. It’s fiction, but the feelings are real, and there’s a creature in this book that can be raised from the dead even if you don’t expect it.”
Even for a novelist who writes autobiographical fiction set on airing out old secrets and facing them head-on, when Auður was working on the novel, she found another side of trauma she didn’t expect. She had taken control of her own narrative, but she still wasn’t ready to let go.
“Vigdís Grímsdóttir was writing my mother’s biography and mentioned an incident from my childhood in an unfamiliar context. It struck me down. I realised that while I had written autobiographical fiction until then, I had always had control over my own narrative. I was protected by the fiction.” Quake centres on a woman who’s forced to rethink the narrative of her own life. For Auður, it’s a process she’s familiar with. “I’ve had to rework my narrative often. That’s where I got the idea. I wanted to write about a person that wakes up with a clean slate as if she were a newborn.”
In the end, Auður was able to let her story go. “Tinna does it so beautifully, so strongly. It’s healthy for an artist to see another artist’s take on their work. It’s fun to work with others in this way.” Auður adds that this isn’t even the first new work of art that’s sparked by her novel. “There’s also a musical composition by Páll Ragnar Pálsson based on a text from the book. When the book was published, he asked if he could make a composition based on a clause from the book about nature within us and geological activity within us. He composed this work, Quake for cello and orchestra, that’s been performed all over the world and was selected as the most outstanding work at the International Rostrum of Composers in Budapest in 2018. The text always accompanies it whenever it is performed. And then he made the score for the film with Eðvarð Egilsson. So, there are at least three works of art derived from this one story.”
Tinna took Auður’s words and transformed them into her own images. “I think it’s so important to use every frame and use all the imagery you can.” Tinna states. “Sounds and colours are so important as well. No less important than the words. The soundscape is so strong in this film, which is why I tell people to see the film in the cinema. I use colours very strategically as well. I use grey, white, and red, these are the colours I use most in the film, and all this is a part of how I tell the story. She’s wearing a red coat, and there’s a reason for that. There’s snow everywhere, everything is white, and there’s a reason for that.” She tells me that getting such copious amounts of snow during the shooting was a lucky coincidence. “You can never rely on Iceland’s weather like that. And we for sure didn’t have the funds for fake snow!”
In 1910, there were 203 municipal councils in Iceland. Now there are fewer than half that number. During the 20th century, following centuries of economic stagnation, Iceland finally industrialised. It was later than other countries in Europe, but it happened in half the time. As people streamed to urban areas, rural municipalities lost inhabitants, and towns grew. In 1911, the greater Reykjavík area had roughly 15,000 inhabitants, around 18% of the total population. Today, that number is 240,000 – and 64% of all the residents of Iceland.
Having lost much of their tax base, many municipal councils are now in dire financial straits, struggling to find the funds to keep up the services they are required by law to provide. Minister of Local Government Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson has made it his mission to streamline municipal councils and presented a heavily-contested bill that would have required all municipalities to have a minimum number of inhabitants, forcing them to merge if they did not. This drew the ire of most regions in the country. The number he named as the minimum requirement was considered obscene, a preposterous idea to require municipalities to reach that size in the next few years.
That number was 1,000 people.
Municipal elections were held across Iceland this spring, and mergers once again became a topic of discussion. While increased requirements for bureaucracy, budgets, education, and services to inhabitants have forced several smaller municipalities to merge, the change is more fundamental than that: it requires a change in the way most Icelanders think about their immediate community.
I grew up in a small town in West Iceland. When I was a kid, the town merged with some neighbouring rural localities to form the Borgarbyggð municipality of nearly 5,000 km2 of land and just under 4,000 people. What was formerly 13 different municipalities is now a single entity, with its headquarters in the largest town of Borgarnes.
Only a few kilometres away, there is a municipality of just 60 residents that has remained independent: Skorradalur. When I think about it, I don’t really know a whole lot about what’s going on there, so I do what any self-respecting journalist would do in my situation – I call my mom.
A former member of the Borgarbyggð council, and possessing both a keen interest in genealogy and family ties to most farms in the region, she would prove a key ally in figuring out the answer to my question – why do 60 people in a small valley cling to power over their own affairs, when municipalities ten times their size struggle to keep up with the requirements of such a project?
My mother’s first suggestion? To call my ophthalmologist. Out of the exactly 60 residents of Skorradalur, 47 are eligible to vote. One of these 47 happens to be my former ophthalmologist and a friend of my parents. She tells me
she’s not really involved with the local government but gives me a few names of people on the council, noting which ones like to talk and which like to talk a little too much. I also find out the name of the person chairing the Skorradalur electoral committee. I give him a call to let him know we’d like to pay a visit on election day. He stops me abruptly: “I’m helping a sheep in labour, I’m going to need you to call me back. It’s lambing season, you know!”
Permission to monitor the proceedings secured, I wake up to a bright and sunny election day. I walk over to my local polling station to cast my vote in the Reykjavík municipal elections before I leave town for the day. As soon as I drop it in the ballot box, I head out and jump in the car with Iceland Review’s photographer – we’re going west.
Skorradalur is a deep valley centring on an even deeper lake. At around 17 kilometres, it is the longest in Iceland. Even though there are only 60 official residents of the valley, Skorradalur is saturated with summer houses, which dot the banks of the lake and stretch all the way up the mountains on either side. Uncharacteristically for Iceland, large swathes of the valley are covered in thick forest.
We park the car by the local reforestation society’s offices, the makeshift polling station. Unlike the elementary school where I cast my vote, there are no signs pointing the way. Everyone voting here knows where to go. The polling station opens at noon, but when we get there, the electoral committee is still setting up. A current member of the council is busy piling a table high with cakes, cheeses, strawberries, chocolate, and coffee. We’re here to gauge the local atmosphere and get to know the community, so I try to start a conversation. After dithering about and awkwardly asking some of my pre-prepared questions and receiving half-hearted answers, I decide it’s time to deploy my secret weapon. I walk up to the oldest person in the room, the chair of the electoral committee, who hadn’t had time for a chat the previous day due to the lambing season.
“You know, I’m actually from around these parts. I think you might know my mother, Guðrún.”
It’s as if I’ve flipped a switch. No longer an intrusive journalist from Reykjavík, I receive a warm smile as the chair of the electoral committee tells me that his grandfather and my great-grandfather used to be thick as thieves.
Davíð Pétursson has lived at Grund farm his whole life, and his father before him. It turns out that no one is better equipped to give us a sense of the importance of the municipal council for the region than Davíð: he’s been involved in every election there since 1961. “But the book goes back further, it was my father who bought it,” he says as he pulls out a notebook from 1938, detailing the election proceedings and results each four-year interval since.
Alongside his work as a farmer, Davíð held the now-defunct
OUT OF THE EXACTLY 60 RESIDENTS OF SKORRADALUR, 47 ARE ELIGIBLE TO VOTE.
“Do you want some coffee?”
“Do you comefrom around these parts?”
position of hreppstjóri (district commissioner) and was the chair of the local council for decades. He isn’t a member anymore, but his son, Pétur, has had a seat for a few terms now, following in his ancestors’ footsteps.
“Have you heard about the worm?”
“Excuse me?”
“The worm in the lake. A young woman from around here found herself in possession of a gold coin. She’d heard that if you put a worm on the gold, it would grow. She found a coffer and placed her coin under a worm. Sometime later, she opened it and found that the worm had grown with the gold. This unnerved her and she threw everything in the lake: the coffer, the worm, and the coin. But the worm kept growing and got so big it reached both ends of the lake. Its hump will sometimes reach out of the lake, but if it ever reaches so high that you can see Dragafell mountain between the worm and the lake, that’s when you know Ragnarök is pending.” Oh, that worm.
“Did you sort things out with the committee? Is everything legal?” someone chimes in. The committee turns a little sheepish. “It’s their ‘estimate’ that it won’t be an issue,” he answers. This is the first time that someone mentions the new election legislation that took effect this year. It won’t be the last.
“It’s in shambles, really.”
“These politicians have no idea what they’re doing.”
“All it takes is one person to file a complaint!”
The new laws require that an electoral committee be made up of people with no familial or financial ties to council members. In this rural community of 60 people, that excludes pretty much everyone. They’d had the idea to switch electoral committees with the neighbouring municipality, but the law requires that members of the electoral committee have legal residence within the municipality. So they’re doing it like they always have, crossing fingers that no complications will arise.
“And then they moved the date up!” It turns out people from Reykjavík really don’t know what they’re doing because, as I’ve heard again and again – It’s lambing season!
Ewes don’t give birth according to a schedule, which means that in the spring, farmers and their families work around the clock assisting lambs into the world. Being on the municipal council never used to be a full-time job. That’s why, historically, elections never took place until late May or June. For the five council members of Skorradalur, that means that the increased demands of modern-day local government come at the expense of time at their other job, time with the sheep, or time off.
Voting in Skorradalur is a little different from Reykjavík. Not only are the refreshments much better (any at all is an improvement!) but there are no parties and no lists to choose from. Since no party has expressed particular interest in
governing the municipality, every single person eligible to vote is also automatically standing for election. Out of the region’s 60 inhabitants, 47 people are Icelandic citizens of sound mind and body and over the age of 18. In theory, any one of them popular enough has a chance of being voted into office and thus being required, by law, to serve on the municipal council for the next four years. The only people allowed to bow out are senior citizens and people who have already fulfilled their duty to Skorradalur.
A voter wanders in and finds a cup of black coffee and a seat to wait his turn. I lean over to ask him if the thought of waking up tomorrow with a seat on the municipal council is an enticing or a frightening thought. He lets out a cynical grunt. “I don’t think I’m at risk.” I ask if people campaign for a seat on the council or if it’s the reverse: are people pleading to be let off the hook? “I haven’t been going out of my way to be mean to my neighbours if that’s what you’re asking,” he says. “But you sort of know who’s up for the job.” I hesitate a little before mentioning the m-word, but bravely forge ahead.
“Any talk of a merger?”
This gets him going.
“If I wake up tomorrow as municipal council director, that’s the first thing I’m going to do. It’s insane that they haven’t done it already, years ago. Utter nonsense to keep such a small entity running. We have no leverage in any sort of negotiations, no one bothers to talk to such a small municipality.”
I was surprised to get such an unfiltered response. I hadn’t even told him who my mother was.
He drains his paper cup of coffee and gets up. It’s his turn to vote.
I think I’m getting the hang of how conversations work here. Call it what you will: rediscovering my roots or getting in touch with my ancestral line of taciturn farmers, I walk up to a determined-looking woman. “Do you come from around these parts?” I ask. She responds fiercely: “Born and raised, I’ve lived in Hálsar all my life.” Jackpot. If anyone can explain the mystery of Skorradalur’s struggle to stay independent, a life-long valley resident must have the key. I get straight to the point. “Do you think there should be a merger?”
“Of course, they should have done it years ago. We should have started the negotiations right after the last elections.” She and another local explain to me that when the other municipalities in the region merged, Skorradalur stayed out and that, in their opinion, that was a mistake. There’s also a slight chance money played a part. Municipalities gain funds from their citizen’s taxes but also through real estate fees. While the 60 people in Skorradalur don’t raise any large sums through taxes, the 800 summer residences in the area keep the books squarely in the green. So, what’s stopping the merger? The other local doesn’t want to get too deep into the subject. “Let’s not talk about that here.” By the time it’s her turn to vote, I’ve added her to my mental list of names of people who send their regards to my mother.
“THESE POLITICIANS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING.”
A current member of the municipal council walks in, wearing a lovely sheep-patterned wool sweater. He’s married to a member of the electoral committee, and I’d been told he was someone who could explain how things work around here. When I asked if the elections were filled with suspense, he chuckled. “Well, I’ve been on the council now for 28 years. If I lose my seat, I think I’ll be ok.”
The atmosphere around the table is convivial and relaxed. A young woman comes in to vote, and someone asks her who she is. Or rather, who her parents are: the Icelandic phrase directly translates as “Which people do you belong to?” She’s the younger daughter from Fitjar farm, currently residing in Reykjavík. As soon as the mystery is solved, the assembly relaxes and moves on to assessing exactly which characteristics in her demeanour add the most to her resemblance to her mother. She is enthusiastically encouraged to have some cake.
In this calm, cosy atmosphere, I get overambitious. I decide to push my luck, so as I’m washing the last bit of cake and cream down with the now-lukewarm coffee, I nonchalantly say to the council member sitting on my left: “So, there are no official merger negotiations on the table?”
The temperature in the room drops several degrees. The amicable buzz of conversation halts. No one looks directly at me, but I can sense every ear in the house tune in. After a slightly-too-prolonged silence, the council member takes it upon himself to chide me. “This is not really the place for that topic.”
I can sense their second-hand embarrassment on my behalf: I’ve broken the social code, and I don’t even know it. It’s the council member’s turn to vote, and he seems eager to get away from this blundering journalist. For the fifth time today, I wonder about how long it takes these people to vote. I get that this might be a weightier decision than voting for a party in Reykjavík, but it can’t be that hard. We leave the polling station to pay a few visits.
Our first stop is the incumbent municipal council director’s house. A relatively recent transplant to the valley, he’s in the process of renovating a house he bought on auction following the banking collapse. Colourful paintings cover most surfaces in his home – Árni Hjörleifsson might have spent his career in municipal matters, but his passion is art, not politics. Several of the paintings depict Skessuhorn, the triangular mountain above his home – Skorradalur’s answer to the Matterhorn.
So why is he here? Turns out Árni used to be married to a local woman and the doyen of the electoral committee, Davíð (of Grund farm), had wrangled him into taking a seat on the council for his know-how in politics. His personal politics weren’t an issue, even though he identifies as a social democrat and Skorradalur, in his words, is “a conservative
lair” ( íhaldsbæli ). “But they found use for this damned social democrat from Hafnarfjörður.” He chuckles.
“In the last elections, I was the oldest person voted into municipal office.” Árni tells me about the cooperation with neighbouring “giant” Borgarbyggð, which at the moment isn’t going so great. “There’s new people there, and in my opinion, they’re trying to force a merger.” Skorradalur was a part of a joint force of small municipalities protesting the plans for mergers under duress. “We got out of the legislation, but there remained an incentive to merge.” In his eyes, forced mergers don’t make sense: they should only be entered into if both parties see an advantage.
So there’s nothing on the table? “There was a poll eight years ago to see if people wanted a merger. It was killed. Do you want some coffee?” I’ve had enough coffee today to start a small car so I politely decline. “But of course, it’s a question of when, not if, at this point. The talk turns to road construction on the north side of the lake and the renovation of the pool reception. We soon find ourselves back on the more comfortable topic of the incompetence of people from Reykjavík. The electoral committee should technically all be disqualified, and elections in the middle of lambing season!
“And then it’s the question of the ballot.” The ballot? “We tried to get it changed, you know, so people wouldn’t have to write in the names by hand, but we had to do it like everyone else. But I had the idea for the stencil, so that’s one solution, I guess.” As he explains further, everything starts to make a little more sense. The reason everyone is taking so long to vote is that in order to make sure their handwriting isn’t recognisable, the voting booth has a stencil with block letters. It’s a secret ballot, but in a valley of 60 people, are there really any secrets?
At our next stop, we’re told to go straight to the barn. It’s lambing season, you know. Once there, we meet the council member from earlier. He’s shed his woollen jumper and is currently practising sheep midwifery of the highest order. A couple of minutes later, a ewe is tiredly baa-ing at a tiny lamb. Only one though: its twin didn’t make it. “I’d noticed she was having difficulty before I went to vote. If there’s bleeding at that point, it’s highly likely that you’ll run into trouble.”
I ask him if he’s excited to see if he’s still on the municipal council when he wakes up tomorrow, or dreading it. “I’ll do my duty, of course, but we need to get this merger going. This just doesn’t make any sense anymore.” He reveals that one reason for Skorradalur’s continuing independence is the fear that moving power away from the people will mean less attention to what needs to be done locally. “That’s why we’re renovating the pool reception; we thought we’d be merging by now and wanted to get it done before it was just a small task on a long list in a larger municipality.” I bring up rumours that Skorradalur doesn’t want a merger to protect
“SO MUCH FOR THAT WORM.”
“In the last elections, I was the oldest person voted into municipal office.”
their coffers, heavy with real estate fees from summerhouse owners. “No, that’s silly. We get by, but there’s no gold stash here.” So much for that worm.
We head to Grund, the ancestral home of the Skorradalur patriarch. Davíð is still preoccupied at the polling station, much like he has been for the past 60 years, but we’re there to talk to his son Pétur. As we drive up to the farm, he’s on his way out to the barn: lambing season.
“So he told you the story? About Grund?” I hadn’t gotten that far in my chat with his father, although I’d gotten some humorous anecdotes about my great grandfather. “Our family’s been here since the 1670s. They bought the farm from Bishop Brynjólfur.” He’s the man on the 5,000-króna bill. But even here at the grand seat of power in Skorradalur, they see the writing on the wall. An independent Skorradalur isn’t possible in the long term. As for the merger, it isn’t as simple as it looks. And perhaps Borgarbyggð, despite its proximity, isn’t the only option. “We should get the talks started immediately, so we can do this right. ” So why haven’t they yet? “Well, your mother should be able to tell you all about that. She was on the municipal council when the last merger talks fell through, and she wasn’t too happy about it if I recall. It was all going pretty well, until one meeting when a Borgarbyggð official went off on the smaller municipalities. He basically called us parasites.” There are other reasons too, of course. There’s the fact that the municipality of
Akranes is actually the largest landholder in Skorradalur. There’s the question of making sure that Skorradalur’s needs are met within a larger municipality and the fact that through some mathematical gymnastics and the intricacies of municipal law in Iceland, a merger with Borgargbyggð could mean that the merged municipality might actually have less funds overall.
I feel as if I’m getting closer to the heart of the matter: it’s about identity and dignity. Living in a small community means that you’re constantly reaffirming who you are and where you come from. You rely on the people around you. You don’t want to relinquish control of your affairs to a party that doesn’t see your importance.
Maintaining a municipality of 60 people doesn’t make any sense. Skorradalur’s residents all know that: especially those of them who have to run it in between shifts at the side of pregnant ewes. But it’s a matter of pride at this point. Nobody wants to let their people down.
I call my mother on the way back to Reykjavík. After reciting a long list of regards and messages, she commends me on my choice of interviewees. “There’s some good people in Skorradalur.” I watch the election coverage that night. It takes a long time to get the first numbers from Reykjavík, but I keep an eye out for the results of the Skorradalur election. Jón gets reelected, so does Pétur. Then there are some new faces, the woman from Hálsar’s daughter-in-law. A farmer we met that day, and a woman from Akranes who just started a sheep farm with her husband.
“There’s some good people in Skorradalur.”
In this three-part series, Iceland Review explores the history and culture of Keflavík, as seen through the eyes of the locals.
WORDS BY RAGNAR TÓMAS HALLGRÍMSSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLLI
As far as kitchen metaphors are concerned, Iceland has always been less a melting pot and more a sandwich grill: a historical environment that, generation after generation, melds together a handful of related ingredients (Wonder Bread and white cheese, e.g.) to produce something consistently plain and predictable.
There is, perhaps, only one place that warrants the use of the first-mentioned analogy, not least because of its association with the original referent (i.e. the United States). With nearly a third of residents having immigrated from one of over 50 different countries, the town of Keflavík – and by extension, the Reykjanesbær municipality – has long seemed a place for the out of place. A home for misfits and oddballs.
And a venue for various unseemly occurrences.
Widely reputed to be home to more fast-food restaurants than any other town in Iceland, Keflavík is also known as the birthplace of Icelandic rock music, a former fishing town (like most other Icelandic towns), Iceland’s first – and current – gateway to the outer world, and one of the country’s youngest communities, demographically speaking.
As we dive deeper into the fabric of the community, we delve into the big questions. Whether they grew up in Keflavík, in other parts of Iceland, or in other parts of the world – what exactly are the town’s residents doing here?
MIKOŁAJ KĘCIK
Seen from the south, the church of St. John Paul II resembles an abortive stone staircase: three white steps aimed fruitlessly towards the sky. On the church’s broad, eastern wall, the kind eyes of its namesake look out upon the neighbourhood of Ásbrú – another name for Bifröst: the rainbow bridge conjoining the realms of men and Gods in Norse mythology.
Residing somewhere between these two figurative structures is Father Mikołaj Kęcik, who emerges quietly from his quarters in the back, on a somewhat dreary weekday morning. He’s got a large, unkempt beard and a self-proclaimed fascination with Viking poetry.
“The way they were fighting, too,” he observes. “They were so good at it that half of the kings in Europe had Vikings as their private guard.”
“And is this a Viking tradition, too?” I ask, glancing down at his bare feet.
“I don’t know,” he laughs. “It’s my tradition.”
Mikołaj Kęcik first came to Iceland eight years ago, and he’s been a priest at St. John Paul’s for three. He’s lived mainly in the Reykjanesbær municipality, which is not “a bad place” – although there’s plenty of room for improvement. Especially in Ásbrú.
“There’s no place where you can sit and drink
coffee,” he laments, “and no place for children.” His congregation, which consists of around 2,000 people, officially, comprises various nationalities – primarily Poles – and the nature of the available work makes for a somewhat unusual society.
“The airport and the Blue Lagoon are important places of employment,” he notes, “which means that if you want to visit someone, you have to make sure that they’re not working a shift. It’s not like a normal community where most people work from nine to five. You have to adapt.”
As Mikołaj tallies up the pros and cons of Reykjanesbær, Iceland’s most multicultural municipality, his ledger seems subsumed by an implicit assessment: Keflavík may be a boring place – but boredom trumps danger.
Mikołaj’s parents, political dissidents, met in a Polish prison during the Cold War. In 1981, when the authorities declared martial law, his parents were arrested a second time; Mikołaj was so traumatised by the event that he would start shaking at the sight of a policeman.
“They wanted to give my sisters and me some sense of normality,” he says, having taken his seat across from me on the couch in his office, “and so they fled to Sweden, where we settled in one of the country’s most affluent communities. I thought that the Swedish kids would like me
“We Polish are a strange nation. We say that when you have two Poles, you have three different opinions and four different political parties.”
– Mikołaj Kęcik
more if I was better off – so I started fighting for money.” Whatever adjustments Mikołaj made to accommodate Swedish sensibilities were quickly nullified by his return to Poland at the age of 15.
“The Poles thought that I was better than them because I had lived in Sweden, or so I suspected. And so I went to great lengths to prove them wrong. I became the biggest drunkard. Cultivated the worst character.”
The tumultuous circumstances of Mikołaj’s youth engendered an intense hatred in his heart – against communism, the police, the government – so much so that he began studying books on torture. One of the generals complicit in his parents’ plight lived a mere 200 metres from his home. Miko imagined using some of what he had learned on him.
“I didn’t like myself very much,” he admits. Which was when his ascent towards something more ideal began. When he found forgiveness.
“My father brought me to catechesis in the church. It was there that I heard for the first time that God loved me for who I was. I thought to myself: ‘If there is someone who can love me when I’m at my worst, when I’m hurting other people –when I don’t even like myself – then that someone is worth being with.”
Mikołaj spent twelve years in seminary,
studying mainly in Denmark (but also in Italy, Sweden, and Finland), and he’s been a priest for 15 years. He loves Iceland’s swimming pool culture (his colleagues in Reykjavík joke that he knows more about who goes to which swimming pool as opposed to which mass) but objects to the turbulent air; he sometimes finds himself sitting alone in church, heeding the otherworldly howl of the wind.
There are few places in Keflavík where the wind is more pronounced than in the yard of the Vesturberg preschool. It sweeps in from the coast, through the metal fence to the north, affording a convenient tailwind to the trikes of small children.
Standing in the middle of the yard is one of the school’s veterans, Danijela Živojinović, who’s busy mediating a dispute between two boys. “He keeps chasing and pushing me,” one of them whines. He’s wearing a KFC buff, which seems apt, in light of the town’s enthusiasm for fast food.
“And what do you say to him?” Danijela asks, hammering home a familiar mantra.
“Stop?” he offers.
“Exactly. It’s good that you’re talking to me, but you can also talk to each other.”
Danijela first came to Iceland in 2006 to
work as a nanny in South Iceland. She met her future husband in Reykjavík, and the two of them eventually settled down in Keflavík. If the community is lacking anything, she says, it’s a better hospital, employing better physicians; last year, the health authorities revoked the licence of a doctor at the Suðurnes Hospital and Health Centre (HSS) after he was accused of causing the deaths of six patients – by prematurely placing them on end-of-life care. And then there’s the insufficient number of paediatricians and gynaecologists.
When asked about the wind, Danijela gives an answer imbued with strong logic and sanguine good sense:
“It’s an island; it would be weird if there wasn’t any wind!”
As we talk, we gradually move closer to the school building, which, as Danijela points out, affords an uncanny respite from the turbulent air –as if the distance between the windswept yard and the building’s wood patio were to be measured in miles, not metres.
The school’s philosophy also evokes the movement of air; imported from Denmark by a former headmistress, “open flow” (opið flæði in Icelandic) allows students to move freely between the school’s four divisions. The doors between the
departments are only closed during nap time and lunch.
“What’s special about this place?” I inquire.
“The airport,” Danijela replies. “For us foreigners, it’s good living close to the airport, as opposed to, say, Egilsstaðir. There’s plenty of work, too,” she adds. “We’re a growing municipality, the fourth largest in the country, and when I say we, I mean we – because I feel like I’m from Keflavík. My children were born here. This is their home.”
Danijela remarks that Reykjanesbær is a multicultural society: 25% of residents are of foreign extraction, and that’s not counting Icelandic citizens like herself. Something like 90 languages are spoken in the area.
“Would you say that the locals are welcoming?”
“Well, when I first moved here,” Danijela begins, “I heard it said that the Icelanders half hated foreigners and that helvítis útlendingur (“god-damn foreigner” in Icelandic) was a common refrain. Hearing such things wasn’t nice. But it hasn’t been my experience.”
Like Mikołaj – who had half a mind to take up arms with the Ukrainians – Danijela despises war. As a Serbian, she experienced the NATO bombing of Serbia (Yugoslavia) in 1999 first hand. She was 18.
“And what do you do in Reykjavík?”
“Things that you can’t do in Keflavík.”
“Those three months were hell. I know war well. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone,” she observes, adding that she harbours no enmity against the Russian people.
Although Danijela came here long after the bombing, Reykjanesbær is home to more than a few Serbians who did flee the war. And many more who came as quota refugees from Bosnia or Croatia, like Danijela’s husband and family.
“When Croatia joined the EU, many Croatians moved here. And many Serbians as well. There are over 100 Serbians in Reykjanesbær. That I know of.”
The white, two-storey building on Njarðarbraut houses a few separate institutions, among them Fjörheimar, a centralised community centre for kids between grades 5 and 10, and 88 Húsið, a youth centre serving teenagers and young adults.
Hanging above the building’s main entrance, slightly to the left, is a small traffic light. It glows
green when the place is open, red when it is not. Directly below the stoplight is an obnoxiously hefty metal fixture, seemingly put there to fulfil the sole purpose of preventing the heavy door from blowing off its hinges in the wind.
“Do you like the wind?” I inquire, somewhat ridiculously, of Omar Ricardo Rondón, a visual artist from Venezuela who moved to Keflavík two years ago. “Nei, I prefer to avoid it!” he says, rather succinctly. One of the more charming people I have met, Omar wears a big smile and seems eternally on the verge of convulsive laughter.
He came to Iceland because that’s where his girlfriend was living. They always planned on moving to Reykjavík, but during the pandemic, when Omar found work at the youth centre, they decided to stay.
“It’s kind of hard because there isn’t much to do,” he admits. “It’s like: the restaurant where everyone eats. The bar that everyone goes to. But I’m a small-town guy, so I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in big cities.”
When Omar began working at the youth centre as an art instructor, his role was confined to that office. But as his circle of acquaintances grew – the children, and by extension, their parents, come from all walks of life – more opportunities presented themselves. He does work for the municipality, shooting and editing videos, while also providing services for the international protection team; as a refugee himself, he wants to demonstrate to others that here, unlike in other countries, the system is designed to help you reach your goals, that is, if you’re willing to put in the effort.
“I think it’s a very open community. I’ve always heard that the old people are a bit closed-minded, but most of the people, in my experience, have been really nice. I began by teaching art classes, devising a programme that began in the summer of 2020. I feel very blessed because I’ve had a lot of opportunities. I’ve lived in Columbia, Spain, the US, and as an immigrant, this hasn’t always been my experience. But here, it’s proved relatively easy. It’s been lovely, actually.”
As he says this, one wonders to what extent Omar’s openness, as a variable no less significant than that of the openness of the community, has determined the ease with which he appears to have assimilated; disposition, and state of mind, often outweigh the effects of the environment.
“Let me show you my place,” Omar says, leading us downstairs toward his studio. As we descend the two flights of stairs, we find ourselves in a chaotic space: two lightbulbs dangling nakedly from the ceiling, second-hand sofas and tables, and a beautiful comic-book mural on the northern wall created by the artist himself.
“What’s your dream?” I ask.
“To be honest, I wanted to become an artist when I began my studies in Venezuela. I was rather successful. In Miami (where Omar did an internship), my ego and expectations were big. The more I learned about the art world, about those who were selling paintings for upwards of $100,000 – everything struck me as a little fake. It was about having the right contacts, knowing the right people. ‘Maybe this isn’t what I want,’ I began to think.”
And then Omar seems to articulate what my previous two interlocutors had allowed to remain implicit.
“Venezuela had been going through a rough time. When I returned from the US, I did a lot of
political art. Criticising the government, etc. But after I moved here, I thought, ‘I have nothing to complain about anymore.’ So I started painting for painting’s sake.”
Omar explains that he had been searching for the right inspiration, but when he began working with kids – some of whom are autistic or are having troubles at home – to his surprise, he found that the work was incredibly fulfilling.
“Parents would come to me and express disbelief at the various positive changes that our work seemed to have engendered.”
“We’re doing something positive for the community, and that’s my passion,” he says. “Working with kids. Seeing them change. I have a certain vision, coming from a country that’s been in such a bad place, so I feel like I can give them advice with a more global view. Many of them don’t know what they want to do after school, and so I tell them ‘let’s work with what you have.’ I feel that we’ve changed a lot of lives over these past two years.
Jón Þorgilsson
Jón Þorgilsson is a superintendent at Suðurnes Comprehensive College (FS). He followed two of his boys to Reykjanesbær after they had “become captivated” with a pair of local girls. Posing in what he considers “the most beautiful” area inside the school – a spacious, modern-looking lounge with bright-coloured chairs – he explains that the room had been “a lot nicer” before it was vandalised. “Freshmen damaged the furniture, so we had to remove a few sofas and chairs; we’re talking kids who don’t want to be here but who are made to attend by their parents.”
Aside from the occasional hooligans, Jón considers Reykjanesbær “a pretty good place to live.” He jokes that he may be too old to qualify as a competent judge and defers his judgement to his two boys, now 24 and 26, who rarely seem to complain. If he were to nit-pick, the school system – like in most places in the country – remains less than perfect, especially as far as waiting lists for preschool are concerned.
Jón celebrates the community’s multiculturalism. “I can’t remember how many languages are spoken here,” he says. “I have a grandkid who’s half Filipino. She’s doing well.”
Bernódus and friends engaged in the favourite pastime of Keflavík teenagers: driving around.
Þórunn and Emma
Dressed in baggy grey sweaters and sweatpants, the national exam-taking outfit among Icelandic youth, Þórunn and Emma, ages 18 and 17, exit the classroom and proceed down the large staircase at the centre of FS. Their faces betray a certain uncertainty in regards to their performance.
Þórunn was raised in Keflavík, and when asked if there’s anything lacking in the municipality, she replies that she just had the same conversation with her father. “He said that there was a lack of diversion. No bowling alley, for example.”
“What do you do for fun?”
“We drive around,” Þórunn says, employing the word rúntur, an Icelandic concept meaning “to pass the time by driving around,” one that often involves people-watching. “We go to Iceland [the frozen goods store] sometimes.” Most of her friends have their own cars, and they often take road trips to Reykjavík.
“And what do you do in Reykjavík?”
“Things that you can’t do in Keflavík,” she says and laughs. She and her friend found work at the airport and the Blue Lagoon this summer, respectively.
Guðberg Gunnarsson
Sitting by himself in the back of KFC, Guðberg Gunnarsson is on lunch break from the hardware store Byko. He's 17 going on 18, and he recently finished his exams at FS.
He’s got the kind face of a cartoon bear and a matching demeanour, too; the playground backdrop seems fitting. Speaking softly from his booth in the back, Guðberg remarks that he moved to town six years ago and lives in Ásbrú with his parents. “It was the most affordable option,” he says.
“How do you like it there?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. It would be nice if they opened a grocery store, though. The streets, too. There are a lot of potholes.”
When asked what he does for fun, the first thing that comes to mind is “driving around with friends.” Sometimes they go all the way to Reykjavík for ice cream. When asked if those friends include any of foreign extraction, Guðberg replies that he has “a couple of Polish friends.” He’s not aware of any prejudice in the community.
Michał
As Pharrell Williams’ Happy plays on the speaker system, Michał, 38, mans the cashier at the Mini Market – one of a chain of small grocery stores catering mainly to the needs of Poles and Eastern Europeans.
He lives upstairs in an apartment above the store, which caters mainly to Poles, Romanians, Latvians, Russians, and the occasional Icelander, who come here mainly to buy cigarettes.
“They’re cheaper here,” Michał says. He first came to Iceland in 2007, and he’s worked at the Mini Market for 12 years. Keflavík is “a pretty nice
place,” although there isn’t much going on here. “You can always arrange something to do,” he observed, but for cultural events, a person must travel to Reykjavík.
He doesn’t have a lot of Icelandic friends and usually hangs out with Polish people, not because the locals are closed-minded – it’s got more to do with his personality.
“I have rather few friends,” he says. “I know a lot of people, but not friends. I just know people. From my work, for example.”
When asked if he foresees staying here, Michał says that he’s not sure. Keflavík is nice and quiet, although he’s been considering a change of scenery. Maybe Canada, where his sister lives.
Oscar Bjarnason was born and raised in the Faroe Islands but moved to Iceland as a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until he grew into an adult and started taking pictures of the landscape that he truly saw the natural wonders that had surrounded him his whole life. He lives on the outskirts of Reykjavík, but often drives the wrong way to work. “Instead of spending 20 minutes stuck in traffic, I take the longer route. I always find something that makes me stop and pull out my camera or drone. I keep my camera in my work bag, or hanging around my neck. I feel naked without it,” Oscar says, adding that he usually keeps a pair of rubber boots in the car, too. “Sometimes you have to wade out into the water to get the best angle.”
Oscar never planned on working in photography. “At first, I wanted to become a goldsmith or architect, but somehow I ended up in technical drawing. On my wanderings at the school job fair, I saw the software that printing houses were using and switched over to that, but then it turned out to be incredibly boring,” he says, laughing. His computer skills and keen eye eventually got him a job at an advertising agency, and then he was headhunted from one to the next. “I was mostly masking pictures in ads to begin with, probably the closest thing to sweeping the floors in the advertising industry,” Oscar jokes. “Something you can do now with the click of a mouse.”
He’s worked in many of Iceland’s biggest advertising agencies as a designer, photo editor, and layout artist, along with becoming one of the country’s best logo designers. So what does a good logo need? “It has to be simple and memorable,” Oscar says, and he goes by the same rule in photography: “KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. Which is not always easy.”
While Oscar enjoys landscape photography, he says it’s not his favourite. “What I love most is wandering around a big city and shooting everything around me. Iceland doesn’t really offer that. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.” He does love photographing solo in the Icelandic highland, too, but finds the summer a challenging time. “The best lighting is during the bright summer nights, but then when you have to take care of the kids the next day, you’re exhausted. That’s why I take most of my landscape photos in the spring and fall.”
Oscar tries to go to the Faroe Islands every couple of years, and recently the main pull has been Icelandic friends who want to visit and bring a local with them. He says most of the people who he has taken to the Faroes have fallen for the country and its people. “Most of them want to go back again – though one photographer was pretty peeved when we got stuck in fog for a week. Then everything is humid and almost black and white.”
So what’s the main difference between Iceland and the Faroe Islands? “The distances. Everything is smaller in the Faroes – you can get anywhere in an hour’s drive,” Oscar says, though Suðuroy island, a definite must-see, is only accessible by boat. “It’s all so charmingly small and relaxed.” The landscapes are similar to Iceland’s Westfjords: steep slopes and very little lowland. “Most of the mountains end in the sea.” Oscar says the roads are good and, unlike in Iceland, you don’t need a jeep for the mountain routes.
Then there’s the Faroese scenery: photo-ops wherever you look. “The clouds often gather around the mountains and a very beautiful light filters through them, which creates dramatic and fantastical
scenes that change every fifteen minutes. Of course, when I was a kid there, I didn’t see it the way I do now. After I took up photography, I started seeing my environment in a whole new way. I almost feel like a tourist when I go to the Faroe Islands now.” The feeling is magnified by the fact it always takes Oscar some time to get used to speaking Faroese again.
“Switching between Icelandic and English is no problem, but Faroese and Icelandic are so similar. Some words are the same, others are identical but have different meanings, so you get mixed up the first few days. The last few times I’ve gone, I’ve prepared myself by listening to Faroese music. Then it seeps into my consciousness before I’m there.”
Since he always has his camera ready, Oscar’s photo collection grows quickly, and he uploads many of his shots to online photo banks, where he sometimes makes a pretty penny. One of his snapshots even paid for a whole trip abroad for the family. “We were in the old town of Lyon, in France, and my daughter was spinning in circles and dancing. I snapped a photo, and later a big European investment firm bought an exclusive licence to it for a whole year.” He can never guess which pictures will sell best. “The ones that I have sold the most copies of are a picture of a lighthouse on Mykines island, in the Faroes – not a great picture by any means,” he says critically. “The lighting was very harsh when I took it, but it sold regularly over the next three years and that one shot ended up paying for the entire trip to the Faroes. Then there’s a picture I took of a row of flags outside Reykjavík City Hall during the Pride Festival: that picture’s been bought a few hundred times.”
To really know Iceland, one must seek to understand Iceland’s history. But properly understanding any country’s history is more of an ideal; a long journey with no end in sight, and by no means a perfunctory task. It traditionally requires, rather unfairly in many people’s view, focusing unabashedly on a few pivotal characters to the exclusion of most everything and everyone else. Whereas previously, the entire field of history was reproachfully and perhaps justifiably referred to as: ‘history of, and by, middle-aged white males,’ more recently the recording and interpretation of history has in some sense been liberated, to become substantially more multilateral, including female and non-Western points of view. Multidisciplinary approaches to historical research are becoming more common and will hopefully continue to give us broader understanding of the past.
Of course, some middle-aged white men have impacted Iceland’s history, but sometimes the greatest impacts have come from the smallest, most overlooked things. Let’s look closer at some inventions, innovation, and events that have changed the course of Iceland’s history.
To understand how much has changed and how far Iceland has come over the last 1,150 years since settlement, we will examine just a few of the most important developments that fostered modern Iceland. Guðmundur Hálfdánarson, Professor of History at the University of Iceland, explains that Iceland was in a state of profound stagnation throughout most of the last twelve centuries, only beginning to chart the path toward social and economic progress in the mid-19th century. From the time of settlement beginning in the 9th century and for the following thousand years, Iceland’s population hovered between 50,000 and 70,000 souls. The country simply could not produce enough food to feed more than that population; starvation was a constant
threat. Citizens’ health was abysmal, and ferocious diseases regularly decimated the population. Paid work was available to only a privileged few; most Icelanders lived hand to mouth eking out pathetic existences in dark, smoky hovels. In fact, in the 1860s, when steamship travel made passage to North America affordable, around 25% of the population emigrated over a fifty-year period, probably sparing themselves from mass starvation in the wake of over a decade of unusually cold winters and the devastating Askja eruption of 1875.
It’s beyond any doubt that the modern printing press, which had finally become available and affordable in the last half of the 19th century, had a dramatic and lasting impact. The first printing press in Iceland had arrived centuries earlier (around 1550) and famously produced the Bible in Icelandic translation, published in 1584 by Lutheran bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson. For the next three centuries, the Lutheran Church of Iceland had a monopoly on publishing and would produce hundreds of devout books, while non-religious manuscripts were for the most part ignored. With the advent of relatively modern printing presses, some books in the Icelandic language proliferated, but remained expensive and inaccessible to the majority of Icelanders.
Newspapers, however, held sway in the late 19th century. These inexpensive broadsheets, often no more than four pages, distributed news stories, opinion columns, and fresh ideas to eager readers. Suddenly, Icelanders could read about what their government, dominated by imperial Denmark, was actually up to. Political ideas for reform spread, much to the disappointment of the colonial authorities. The new printing presses helped lead Icelanders out of the darkness of ignorance and introduced the population to the promise of the wider world. Iceland’s independence movement was arguably born in the pages of
“THE WORLD AT NIGHT, FOR MUCH OF HISTORY, WAS A VERY DARK PLACE INDEED.” BILL BRYSONWORDS BY FRANK WALTER SANDS
periodicals. Icelandic home culture evolved around newspapers and journals. It was an age-old Icelandic tradition for texts such as the sagas or poetry to be read aloud, sometimes called kveða, in most farms’ baðstofur (living rooms) by one reader to the rapt attention of entertainment-deprived households in the premodern period. Building on this tradition in the 19th century, it became common to read aloud from the newspaper, which kept the common people apprised of national and international events until well into the 20th century.
On a bright, midsummer day in 1905, the first instant communication between Iceland and the outside world was achieved with a Marconi radio antenna at the site of the famous Höfði house, where Reagan and Gorbachev would meet in 1986. The first message received via Morse code reported a tragic collision between two ships in the North Sea. One newspaper claimed, somewhat hysterically, that a man in the vicinity of the antenna had been knocked down and nearly killed by one of these mysterious radio transmissions. Even after the momentous event, uncertainty and rumours of fraud persisted, but eventually the efficacy and value of radio telecommunications was recognised, especially after hundreds of lives were saved due to an S.O.S. radio message sent from the sinking Titanic in 1912. The primitive radio transceiver remained in use until October 1906, when submarine telegraph cables promising greater reliability became feasible. Hannes Hafstein, a popular poet, lawyer, and businessman, became First Minister for Iceland in 1904 and Managing Director of the National Bank of Iceland before being elected as Speaker of Parliament, but is probably best known for connecting Iceland to the outside world with the 990km [615mi] undersea cable from Seyðisfjörður in Eastern Iceland to mainland Europe via the Faroe and Shetland Islands. The impressive feat was achieved with almost 1,000 kilometres of undersea cable
and a 600-km long landline supported by 14,000 wooden telephone poles. The ability to communicate fluently with the world and receive immediate news and market updates gave the previously isolated island multiple advantages. Weather reports delivered in a timely manner saved countless sailors’ lives, knowing real-time commodity prices allowed seafood to be sold at higher profits and fuel and food to be purchased at more competitive prices. When World War I started in 1914, Icelandic shipping was able to sell fish at higher prices and avoid embargos as well as some of the perils of naval warfare. It would take until 1930 for radio broadcasting to reach Iceland’s small, dispersed population, modelled on the BBC which was founded in 1922. The first broadcast was limited to a few hours of programming; beginning with the news, the radio programming featured church services, some classical music, a few children’s stories, and without a doubt the most important to inhabitants of the windy and rainsoaked North Atlantic, the blessed weather report.
Certainly among the biggest changes in Icelandic workers’ outfits in the first half of the 20th century, rubber boots represented, “extremely positive changes for the health and well-being of workers,” according to a contemporary journal. It is hard to grasp what a consequential impact rubberised boots had on Icelanders just a century ago. Iceland is a wet country, where it rains on average 150 days per year. Much of the country is covered in a thin topsoil that can only absorb a limited amount of precipitation, leaving puddles and wet patches on much of the populated lowlands. Even the turf houses where most Icelanders lived until the mid-20th century were damp. For fishermen and farmers in particular, but also town dwellers and laborers of all kinds, the discomfort of wet feet was all part of a day’s work. In the mid-19th century, Englishman Hiram Hutchinson bought the patent for making rubber footwear from the American tire manufacturer Charles Goodyear and began
manufacturing rubber “Wellies”, or Wellingtons, in the United Kingdom. It would take another half century for the first rubber boots to be sold in Iceland, in 1903, and it was not until World War I that they became widely adopted by Icelanders, especially farmers who could now, according to advertising of the day, “work all day with clean, dry feet.” Even today, practically every Icelandic toddler arrives to their first day of preschool with a shiny pair of rubber boots.
Geothermally heated water had regularly been exploited for pools and steam baths since the settlement period, but was generally only enjoyed by the privileged elite. Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century chieftain and historian, built a heitur pottur (hot tub) that he used to relax and rest his weary bones, a reconstruction of which can be seen at his charming country residence of Reykholt (Smoke Hill) in West Iceland. With energy prices surging across the globe in recent months, Iceland may be justifiably envied as the only country in the world that obtains nearly all of its electricity and heat from renewable sources.
While it is easy to identify hot spots and volcanic vents across the country, and there are hundreds of waterfalls large and small, it was not until the global energy crisis of the early 1970s that Icelanders were forced to find alternatives to importing and burning coal and oil in order to heat and provide electricity to homes, businesses, and public facilities. Beginning with limited geothermal heating of a few buildings in the capital in the 1930s, the government embarked on a policy of identifying potential areas for geothermal exploitation, and over decades gradually built new wells and transmission pipelines that eventually reached a large proportion of the country’s towns, villages and farms. There is no national energy grid, because Iceland does not need such a costly energy distribution hub. Drilling between 200 and 2,000 metres deep near one of the country’s 600 hot springs produces high-pressure steam that turns electricitygenerating turbines. The by-product is a lot of hot water which is
allowed to cool somewhat and is then piped to nearby towns at relatively low cost. It was not long before towns without a heated swimming pool were considered backward, and no respectable summer house these days would lack a hot tub. As a bonus, the last four generations of Icelandic children have been taught to swim as part of the school curriculum, certainly saving countless lives. Icelanders’ hygiene and in turn health over this period improved dramatically. Clothes could now be cleaned cheaply, and regular bathing became a hallmark of modernity. Reykavík’s iconic Perlan (The Pearl) on Öskjuhlíð hill was originally a cluster of geothermal tanks which stored hot water reserves for the capital area.
It would be a massive understatement to say that Iceland has reaped the rewards of switching from fossil fuels to geothermal energy. The economic savings derived from exploiting the country’s renewable resources while the rest of the world has kept burning fossil fuels have transformed Iceland from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the wealthiest, with among the highest standards of living in the world. Today, geothermal water heats around 90% of homes, and keeps many sidewalks and parking lots free of snow and ice during the long, dark winters.
Originally built in Iceland as a wooden, six-oared Icelandic rowboat (sexæringur ), the Stanley was the first boat in Iceland to be outfitted with a primitive two-stroke engine in November 1902. Although the boat was probably 40 years old at the time of its conversion with a newly imported Danish Mollerup engine, its successful mechanisation is considered to be the dawn of the revolution for the Icelandic fishing industry. First launched with an engine from Ísafjörður, despite initial doubts, the boat’s first motor trip proved a great success, convincing Icelandic fishermen that motorboats would soon come to dominate the fishing industry. Within a matter of ten years most of the Icelandic fishing fleet was similarly mechanised.
Visit Deildartunguhver, Europe’s most powerful hot spring and experience nature from its core by bathing in the geothermal baths at Krauma.
It is open all year around and offers five geothermal baths, a cold tub, infrared cell, steam bath and relaxation room where guests can lay or sit down, while being serenaded by soothing music and the crackling of the fireplace.
Krauma is located at Deildartunguhver, a 97 km drive from Reykjavík.
These early motorboats, while small by modern standards, had an enormous impact on the seaside villages where they were moored. They brought much needed income to coastal towns such as Bolungarvík and Seyðisfjörður, drawing in ambitious young people to work on the boats or on shore in salting and barrelling the valuable fish for export. These hardy workers, both male and female, ended up settling down and founding families. The new fishing-based communities grew rapidly and were a major economic force in the early 20th century. Unfortunately for most of these small towns dotting Iceland’s periphery, the competition from large, modern trawlers and a controversial fishing quota system have all but rendered the smaller motorised fishing vessels irrelevant. Many young people have been forced to abandon these quaint villages that appear stuck in an earlier time, seeking better-paid jobs and migrating to the capital region or larger towns like Akureyri.
While all these changes were vital to the development of modern Iceland, when asked what one event or date was the most influential, Professor Guðmundur does not hesitate. June 10, 1940, when, despite the Icelandic government’s declaration of neutrality in the anticipated European war, the British warship HMS Berwick entered Reykjavík harbour with some 640 Royal Marines, who handed out flyers in broken Icelandic to curious onlookers and promptly set off to the nearby German embassy to arrest the Nazi Ambassador and take control of other strategic facilities. Within 24 hours, the British had taken complete control of Iceland, with the respectful but reluctant cooperation of the Icelandic government.
While most Icelanders realised the gravity of their government’s immediate capitulation to the Allies, many more understood that economically, politically, and socially, the country would never be the same. Within months of the British landing, Iceland’s unemployment had disappeared. Labour
was in high demand thanks to the construction of Reykjavík’s massive airport and hundreds of defensive structures, and wages for ambitious Icelanders grew commensurately. For the first time in Iceland’s thousand-year history, countless women and men migrating from the impoverished countryside were able to gain employment in construction and services, and earn cash – actual money –instead of the standard room-and-board deal that farm work commonly offered. A popular joke of the era was to ironically refer to the armed conflict threatening freedom and peace as the “blessed war,” due to how quickly Iceland began to develop, and how dramatically locals’ lives improved. Fraternisation between American and British soldiers on the one hand and Icelanders on the other rejuvenated Icelandic culture. Young people benefitted particularly from the interaction, absorbing jazz and modern dancing enthusiastically, eager to learn everything about popular culture across the pond, while gaining access to educational and employment opportunities which would coalesce to create a large self-perpetuating middle class.
Despite the horror of the war, for the first time since the settlement in the 9th century, hope took hold of Icelanders – and didn’t let go. With hard work and dedication, it was understood that life would indeed improve. The government followed the post-war Scandinavian model by promoting a liberal society based on social welfare. Business and the arts flourished. Women suddenly saw the opportunity to use their collective power to bring about more gender equality, an effort which continues to this day, but has made the Icelandic feminist movement a world leader, and in the person of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, produced the first democratically-elected female President of a Western nation, in 1980. More than any other invention, innovation, or event, those five years of war transformed Iceland into a modern state.
There are plenty written sources that illuminate Iceland’s history over the past century. Written records from Iceland stretch back to the mid12th century, including legal and religious documents, and of course there are the Icelandic Sagas. But where does our knowledge of Iceland’s early history come from?
Despite a total lack of written records, the field of historical linguistics has been able to bring ancient languages back to life, such as the over-6,000-year-old language of the ProtoIndo Europeans, from which nearly all European languages are derived. Similar regression methods have effectively proved how old Icelandic actually sounded, in the absence of any voice recordings.
The carbon-14 revolution, which began in the 1950’s, measures the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 isotopes of organic matter to estimate age and geographic origin.
The breakthrough in next-generation DNA sequencing has allowed scientists to identify full genomes of organisms, whether alive or dead. Making use of big data, archaeologists can upload datasets of genetic information into powerful computers to find matches that determine, for example, who is related to whom as well as reveal complete genomes of not just plants and animals, but microbes such as bacteria and viruses.
TThe study of fossilised plants and animals is yet another field which has been contributing to our better understanding of Icelandic history. Scott Riddell, a doctoral student of paleoecology at the University of Iceland, says his research makes use of the tiniest bits of data in order to create a clearer image of the past. Much of his time is spent identifying and counting pollen under a microscope, taken from core samples at archaeological sites. In the wake of frequent volcanic eruptions in Iceland, tephra (basically volcanic dust), ash, and gas are ejected and often spread over large swathes of the country. With time, these layers of volcanic dust are covered by additional layers
of earth. Using a method pioneered by Icelandic geologist Karl Grönvold, cylinder-shaped samples of soil are taken at various depths. The age of the thin layers of soil or peat can then be determined by their position relative to the layers of ash and dust, providing potentially more accurate results than radiocarbon dating techniques, which can only be used on carbon-based materials that were once living organisms. When a sample of this soil is analysed, one can get an estimate on the prevalence and abundance of particular vegetation at different time periods. The study of plant pollen and macrofossils has also given us a better idea of how plants colonised Iceland prior to human settlement, a process which took place over millions of years.
Remarkably, the sediments of most of Iceland show a clear change right around the year 871 broadly consistent with the appearance of archaeological features associated with the settlement of Iceland during the Viking Age. Before the Norse settlers arrived, the sediments tended to be darker and more organic. This is what would be expected in an area with both copious wetlands and substantial forests. After the initial settlement of Iceland in the late 9th century, however, the earth is found to contain more minerals and is lighter, indicating a dramatic ecological change over a very short period.
Post-settlement soil contains more coprophilous fungal spores, which is associated with the presence of cattle dung and can be seen to increase over the first few centuries. Charcoal residue is also abundant in the post-871 soil samples, consistent with the concentrated burning of timber. Analysis indicates that most of Iceland’s forests were eradicated within decades of the arrival of the Norse.
We can also see from other spores in sediments that dozens of plants used for medicinal purposes were imported and cultivated during the first centuries of settlement. Valerian, an herb native to the European mainland and used as a sedative, is one such import, commonly found today in areas where ancient Benedictine and Augustinian monasteries were once located. The monks’ and nuns’ knowledge of medicinal plants was well known to Medieval Icelanders who often sought treatment for their ailments at the cloisters.
I get to work at 9:20 on Wednesday morning. I’m hoping this won’t be the case all summer. That I show up 20 minutes late. In so doing, I’ve broken the promise I made to myself. To show up on time. But it does make a certain amount of sense, and I’m reluctant to say it’s a problem. The long and short of it is I didn’t sleep much. Maybe five hours. I don’t know. I need at least eight. And on top of that, I woke up when Þula went to the bathroom. The bedroom air was close. I took the opportunity to get up and open a window, since I was already awake anyway. Listened to her footsteps and went to the bathroom myself, even though I didn’t particularly need to. Sat on the toilet with one eye closed. By keeping one eye closed, I can acclimate each eye to different light conditions. The open eye acclimates to the light and when I turn that off, I open the closed eye, which can see better in the darkness. That way, I don’t stumble on my way back to bed. I hate the feeling of lying in bed when you need to pee. When I was a teenager, I usually tried to sleep in, even if I really had to go. Would just lie there, half asleep and half bursting for two, three hours until I finally lugged myself out of bed. So I went to the bathroom last night so I wouldn’t have to go later, since I was already up anyway.
I had a hard time waking up this morning, dragged it out for a long time. Which is why I’m late now. Truth is, I never sacrifice my morning routine, so when I get going in the morning entirely depends on when I manage to wake up. The first thing I do when I get up is stretch my back. Getting older means needing to stretch your back more often. Being more careful about how you sit. Today, I won’t slouch when I sit, I say to the mirror. Sometimes, I don’t believe it’s me in the mirror. That happens when my head is foggy. I’ll recognise my face but have trouble believing that my entire existence and consciousness inhabits this body, that this is what people see. But today, I looked it in the eye and the image in the mirror made sense. Yes, that was definitely me, I thought, and then I spat into the sink, smiled. It’s good to recognise yourself.
I’m an independent gardener. In the summertime. Winters, I work at an art museum. One of those collections that few people visit, tourists haven’t a clue it even exists, but they keep it up and running for the sake of Iceland’s cultural heritage. I think it’s rather lovely, although for the most part, I don’t really care about art – it’s mostly landscape painting that sparks my interest. But I think it’s nice that there’s something that exists solely for a select few who are interested in it. The law of supply and demand has always struck me as stupid, and stupid to call it a law. Outside of that, I don’t have any interest in politics. I voted once, just after I’d turned 18, but that was only because everyone else was voting. But it changed nothing, at the end of the day. So I stopped voting. Alcohol’s the same story: I tried it, didn’t like it, and haven’t had the urge to try it since. I might’ve voted because of Þula, because it’s important to her. But by the same token, she says a person must vote according to their own convictions. So now I just stay home on election day.
In the winter, I sit in a corner of the little gallery and ask people to kindly refrain from taking pictures – it’s museum policy, no pictures. Myself, I’ve got nothing against people taking pictures, such that every now and then, I hold off scolding guests with cameras, at least when there aren’t many of them, which is most of the time. Let them snap one or two. It’s a cushy job. Nice and easy. I can listen to my thoughts. Or listen to nothing at all when I’ve no thoughts to speak of. Then I listen to the hljóð. In Icelandic, hljóð is a word that encompasses its opposite: it means both silence and sound. I think this is great, because to me, silence is a type of sound. But the command Hafið hljóð! has always confused me. It’s meant to mean ‘Silence!’ of course, but it also literally means ‘Make noise!’
I’m grateful to the museum for the chairs it provides myself and the staff member at the front desk. They’re tall, which means you have to perch on them. Which is better for your back. My back’s gotten worse lately, but I’ve managed to limber it up with some effort over recent months. Now and then, I’ll stand up and amble over to the other gallery to keep my blood circulating, maybe pop by the front desk and say a quick hello.
In the summertime, I’m an independent gardener. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to start my own business. I’ve never felt I had an entrepreneur lying dormant within me. I will never, for example, open a data centre or run my own hotel. But I did manage to buy my own lawnmower, gloves, and a little van and put together a decent Excel spreadsheet on Þula’s computer.
I’d never bought a car before. When I walked into the showroom there was an unpleasant new smell and everything was shiny. After the car salesman acquainted me with all my options, I stood in the middle of the polished showroom floor deep in thought. I know nothing about cars, on top of which, it was a lot of money. The salesman had started checking his watch when I finally said I’d take that one there. That one there that runs on electricity. At least it won’t create more pollution. It occurred to me that I could use it to move things if my gardening venture ran aground. I could help relatives and friends who needed a vehicle with a large boot. The salesman asked me if I wanted to test drive it for a few days to make sure it was the one I wanted. I said no. I didn’t want to come back.
The dream was to garden. Ever since I can remember, I’ve lain in the grass, smelled the soil, gazed into leafy treetops for hours at a time. I forget myself when I smell the scent of freshly cut grass, how it curls into my nostrils and tickles my memory. I took care of pet spiders, nursed injured birds, and hurried out whenever it rained to watch the worms peeping up out of the earth; it’s lovely to see them appear in the twilight, to see the earth revealing the life that thrives beneath its surface. I’d usually get soaked through, but I never got cold, rather, I felt a warmth streaming through my body and out into my senses whenever I felt the earth, felt it on my skin, in my nostrils and eyes. Þula once told me that if I were a book, I’d be Nature’s Child by Halldór Laxness. She’s clever,
An amazing Snowmobile ride close to the Golden Circle
Come with us on an adventure on Langjökull, Iceland' s second largest Glacier.
Riding a snowmobile on the massive snow cap is a unique experience that you will remember for the rest of your life.
Þula, and reads a lot. She also pointed out that it would be good for my vitamin balance to be outside. I hadn’t given it much thought, but she’s right. And, of course, being active is good for your back.
I try to take good care of myself. Stretch my back in the morning and keep it straight when I sit, stand, or lie down. In the winter, I take a walk every day, then come home and plank for a full minute. My record is two minutes, but that was a one-time thing. Basically, I got distracted while I was planking. There was a bird on the windowsill that by all rights, should not have been there, not in a home garden. It was a common murre, which is a seabird that nests on rocky ledges and lives in dense colonies – not in towns. But there it sat on the windowsill in our garden, moving its head just so, like birds do, looking up and down and side to side and strutting a bit for me. Then it spread its wings, flew toward the sea, and by that point, I’d planked for two minutes. People say that physical activity is mostly mental. I agree with that.
It’s really only in my head that I’m late to work. The projects I’m working on are easy ones, and I’m not obligated to start or finish them at a specific time. I mow a few gardens, clear the chickweed from a few fields, and when that’s done, I go home. The summer this year has been a good one—lots of sun, not much rain, and my face has turned brown. Although I don’t mind being out in the rain, I actually think it’s really nice. As nice as being in the sun. Just different. You can’t mow the grass, but you can investigate the flowerbeds and watch the worms. When the sun shines, there’s a tranquillity over everything, the plants and animals laze away and sun themselves, suck in all the energy from the rays and enjoy baking. But when it rains, the greenery goes to work, everything begins to wriggle.
Þula and I are very different, but we get along well. I think it’s tolerance that does it. Tolerance is the foundation our relationship is built upon. I think that’s uncommon. Many build their relationships on passion, talk about their better halves. People like that say that together, they feel whole, that they can’t live without the other. That’s not the case for Þula and me. We live together, separately. I like being around her and she likes being around me. Þula is big on culture. She thinks it’s great that I work at an art museum that I can get her into for free. She’s got the inside track on most of what’s happening in Icelandic cultural life. She reads every book that comes out and takes me with her to the cinema and the theatre. I’ve little interest in movies and plays, but I like going with Þula anyway. Because I can feel how interested she is beside me and that’s enough for me. Sometimes, I covertly watch her instead of whatever work we’ve gone to see. She finds that uncomfortable, says she can’t lose herself in the piece if there’s always someone watching her. So I never do it for too long.
I like working, but that isn’t to say that I don’t want to finish early. I think most people must dream about getting off work early. My best days are the ones where I finish around noon. That happens when I decide to get to work particularly early the next day. I don’t know why I decide that sometimes. It’s just a feeling I get. Like I need to reset myself, reacquaint myself with the person in the mirror. I can feel that it’s time. Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow’s the day.
On such days, I wake before 7:00 and arrive before 8:00. Work efficiently and quickly, break for a light meal that I eat standing up around 10:00 and then get done around noon. I load the mower and other tools into the van, drive home and take a long shower. In the shower, I let the water patter on my head and look up into the spray. The muscles in my body relax and I feel good, I’m floating into a state. My thoughts begin to organise themselves in my head and the fog clears from my eyes. After I shower, I go into the garden and make ready for a long outdoor sojourn. I fill a pitcher with water and bring out some food. Then I lie in the grass on my stomach or back, stand up, stroll around the garden, and look at my plants, the trees, the grass, the insects, and the birds. I take in every detail of my surroundings; I somehow see clearer, the vegetation smells stronger.
I eat the food I’ve brought out with me, lunch bleeds into afternoon coffee, which flows into dinner. Þula comes out with her book but goes in when the sun goes down and it gets chilly. But I stay outside. Standing, lying, or sitting, straight-backed and listening to the birds, listening to the grass and the sky.
The day dusks and darkens. Þula comes to the window and calls to me that she’s going to bed. I tell her I’m going on a walk, I’m full of energy. I walk down into the valley, there’s no one about. People have to go to work tomorrow. The nights are no longer bright, rather, darkness has once more started to make its presence known. It doesn’t arrive suddenly, but takes its time, unfurls slowly but determinedly across the day, deepens. The dew condenses on the grass, and I can see my footprints in it. My feet get wet. I walk down to the brook and watch the ground mist steal alongside it and towards me. It’s been waiting for me. A familiar tickle trembles down my spine. My back is strong, my mind clear. I sit on the dew-damp bank, close my eyes, and listen to the birds singing with the brook in the background. I listen with my whole body. The sound enters my fingers and toes, courses through my veins and into my heart, then pumps up along my neck until collecting behind my frontal lobe. I lie down, eyes still closed, and the grass awakens, the scent of wet aliveness crawls amongst the roots of my hair and down into my eyes. A mossy green smell paints the inside of my eyelids. Life resides in wetness. I am alone, the only one awake, the only one alive in this moment. I open my eyes. The clouds have clad themselves in dusky red dresses, my eyes are full of scent, my heart sings, life is wet. I breathe deeply and let the sound drain from my forehead. A low hum that transforms into a profound energy. Inscrutable worms cheering on their surroundings. My feet dip themselves into the brook of their own volition, my fingers crawl in different directions and get lost in the grass, my head sinks deeper into the bank. The wind gets its bearings, wakes up, gusts across the grasses that sway all around, the blades grow nearly half a metre, the brook overflows its banks, my blood runs faster, the clouds coil downwards, coalesce in the ground mist, dusky red and trembling in my spinal column, the scent swirls in my eyes, the voice grows louder, from the depths of my heart, from the depths of my consciousness, I’m soaked through but not cold, I’m hot, smoking to the touch, and I am alive, I become one with the fog – the ground mist, the clouds, the wind and my soul – give a great cry and become one with the earth. A tornado of all that lives, all that dies, and me reclining in its eye.
On days like this, I come home in the darkness and Þula asks me in a sleep-drunk voice:
“Is that you? Did you get your feet wet again?”
“Yes,” I answer, “there’s dew on the grass.”
“There’s a paved path into the valley, you know.”
“I got caught up in the moment.”
“Don’t you have to be up early?”
“Yes, I’m going to try to be there by 9:00.”
“That seems unlikely,” she yawns, pulling up the blanket.
And she’s usually right. I don’t get much sleep, maybe five hours, and it takes me a long time to wake up. But I look in the mirror and smile. I recognise myself. I get to work 20 minutes late.
Birnir Jón Sigurðsson is an Icelandic writer and performer working with text, film, and theatre. His works often revolve around environmental matters and the individual in the context of the commercial and attention economy. In addition to his individual work, Birnir is a member of devised theatre groups CGFC and Ást og Karóki. He is Reykjavík City Theatre’s official playwright for the 2022-2023 season. Birnir is the founder of tóma rýmið experimental theatre space in Reykjavík, Iceland. He has produced and co-produced various cultural events, including experimental theatre nightsin tóma rýmið, experimental theatre festival Safe Fest, and Gullmolinn Short Film Festival.
We know it well after 30 years. We have unlocked its secrets. Its healing power. Its radiant universe.
All for your wellbeing.