How to say "good night" in Icelandic

March marks the beginning of my residency in Siglufjörður, a small fishing community in Northern Iceland. You can read more about the area and my plans for the residency in an earlier post.

As I boarded my Icelandair flight, I was impressed by the linguistic lessons on the antimacassars. But 'soft and cuddly' may not be the way work is heading, with rock formations like this outside the window...

Under the Glacier

I found this beautiful description of the Snaefells Glacier in Halldor Laxness's novel Under the Glacier (first published in Iceland in 1968). I particularly like the closing lines which describe glacial ice as looking like a print - a nice reversal of my daily attempts to make prints which look like glacial ice.

"... The undersigned began to contemplate the glacier. In actual fact the glacier is too simple a sight to appertain to what is called beautiful, which no one knows the meaning of and by which everyone means something different from everyone else: one of those words it is safer to not use about a glacier nor anything else.

"The undersigned has never before seen this mountain glacier except from too far away, but was now about to become acquainted with it for a while. The mountain reminds one of an upturned earthenware bowl, the glazing a little bluish at times, but sometimes like gold-rimmed transparent Chinese porcelain, especially if the sun is low in the west over the sea, because then the rays play on the glacier from two directions. From here the glacier looks somewhat coarse-grained like a print that isn't good enough; the ice is rain-sullied in many places in the lower regions, and has developed streaks like a smudged print."

(Translated by Magnus Magnusson)

There's more on the novel itself in a great review by Niranjana Iyer over at the blog Brown Paper.

Siglufjörður Residency

Siglufjördur 1905

I have been awarded a residency in the Herhusið studio, located in Siglufjörður, North Iceland. This month-long residency is a wonderful opportunity to travel north again and consider the Arctic from the boundary where it meets with the temperate zone.

Siglufjördur is a lively coastal town, caught between ocean, rock and glaciers. It was the capital of the North Atlantic Herring Fishery from 1903-1965, and is now home to the enticing 'Herring Era Museum'. I've been hoping to bring a fishy element into my work for some time (I grew up close to the Border harbour towns - St. Abbs, Eyemouth, Craster and Cullercoats - and have always been partial to mackerel). Now, with the economic and environmental challenges facing the fishing industry, it seems a more intriguing subject than ever.

Siglufjördur 1946

I'll be accompanied on my investigations of the Herring Era by photographer Mark Walton, whose work has already appeared on these pages, and writer and broadcaster Carinne Piekema will contribute some sound science to the verbal/visual mix.

One of the good things about the residency is that it has already introduced me to the work of the fantastic artist Julia Lohmann who spent a month at Herhusið in 2009. Her kelp structures and maggotypes are extraordinary. Thanks to Julia for letting me use the images above from her blog about her residency.