The Institute of Gunnar Gunnarsson, Iceland

During September and October I am Writer in Residence at Skriuðuklaustur, near Egilsstaðir in East Iceland.  Skriuðuklaustur is the former home of Iceland's much-loved novelist Gunnar Gunnarsson, who donated it to the nation in 1948, with the proviso it should be a home for literature. (You can read more of the history and architecture of this fascinating and unusual Icelandic building here.)

During my time here I'm researching glaciers for my forthcoming book The Library of Ice. The vast Vatnajökull glacier is not far from Skriuðuklaustur, and as well as enjoying the peaceful writing environment, I've been participating in some more active research out on the icecap. 

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The Institute of Gunnar Gunnarsson, Skriðuklaustur, Iceland

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The author Þórbergur Þórðarson’s library from his Reykjavik home

recreated at The Þórbergur Centre, Hali, Suðursveit, Iceland

ARKIR Book Arts Group, Reykjavik

On my way through Reykjavik last week I gave a presentation to ARKIR, an Icelandic book arts organisation. I opted to show and discuss The Night Hunter and Tikilluarit, two works from Z'roah Press, each of which responds to a different poem from my forthcoming collection Disko Bay.

It was a great pleasure to meet members of ARKIR and I was glad to be able catch their current exhibition ENDURBÓKUN ('Re-Book') in Spöngin Culture House, which continues to 3 October 2015. A few examples of their work follow and you can see more over on the ARKIR blog (which has its own post about my visit here).

Vefur by Ingirinður Ódinsdóttir

Ævintýri by Áslaug Jónsdóttir

Summer reading: new essays and reviews

Filming Ófærð

• I wrote about the experience of sharing a small Icelandic town with a film crew working on the Nordic Noir drama Ófærð ('Trapped') for the Times Literary Supplement ('Freelance', 19 June issue or available online to subscribers). 
• A feature on Emma Stibbon RA's drawings of polar ice (current exhibition at The Polar Museum, Scott Polar Research Institute) has been published on the Royal Academy Blog. (You can read a lengthier assessment of Stibbon's work over at The Island Review.)
• I reviewed Confessions of a Comma Queen, a riotous memoir by The New Yorker's copy editor Mary Norris, for Editing Matters the journal of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders.
• A review of Printmaking on the Edge - the history of St Michael's print workshop in St John's, Newfoundland - is out in the summer issue of Printmaking Today. (Lovely book, available here.)

Vantar | Missing in Iceland

Gallery visitors consider some of the prints in Vantar | Missing, an exhibition of my work in Herhusið during March. Thank you to all the people of Siglufjörður who made this show possible. 

For more information about the Vantar | Missing project, see my website.

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The Nordic House, Reykjavik, Iceland

Exhibitions in Iceland

You are invited to view two exhibitions in Siglufjörður, Iceland.  Herhusið will be open on Saturdays in March to show my recent work Vantar | Missing and Síður í Siglufjörður | Pages in Siglufjörður, 

a selection of artists' books on the theme of coastlines chosen by Sarah Bodman. 

Watch this space for Private View details, according to weather.

UPDATE! There's a date change: exhibition will be open on Friday 13 March, 

not Saturday 14 March. It's getting snowy here…

For directions and any other questions contact me: nancy@nancycampbell.co.uk

On the road again

Cover of Vantar / Missing

London
I'll be performing poems from my forthcoming collection on the Arctic as part of Trapped in the Ice, Frozen in Time at the British Library on Thursday 5 February. The evening is programmed as part of the library's acclaimed exhibition Lines in the Ice, which examines the role of the Arctic in the making of the modern world (runs until 19 April). It will be hosted by the Library's redoubtable Interactive Fiction Writer in Residence Rob Sherman, and also features readings by the wonderful JR Carpenter and Kate Pullinger.

Oxford
It's the final meeting of Arctic Book Club on Monday 9 February. It's been a wild whistlestop midwinter tour of Arctic literature, and my deep thanks go to Dennis Harrison of the Albion Beatnik bookshop for providing such a cool venue, and to the Arts Council for generously supporting the programme. Thanks also, of course, to all our readers, including those who read the books long-distance from as far away as New York and Norway. Follow @ArcticBookClub on Twitter to keep up with plans for next winter's programme.

Reykjavik
In March I travel to Iceland where I'll be reading at Dynamics of Darkness in the North, a conference at the Nordic House which runs from 26 to 28 February. This promises to be a fascinating event, perversely celebrating the United Nations designation of 2015 as 'International Year of Light'.

Siglufjörður
Also in Iceland, my recent work Vantar | Missing is exhibited at Herhusið, open on Saturdays in March. This will be accompanied by Síður í Siglufjörður | Pages in Siglufjörður, a selection of artists' books on the theme of coastlines chosen by Sarah Bodman.

Bristol and Bedford
Back in the UK I'll be exhibiting my books at Bristol Artists Book Event on 11 and 12 April (look out for the premiere of my new Arts Council-funded collaboration with BSL poet Donna Williams on 12 April in the Reading Room). Later in the month I'm looking forward to being guest reader at Ouse Muse in Bedford on 22 April. 

Return to Siglufjörður

I am grateful to the Oppenheim John Downes Trust for a generous grant that enables me to return to Iceland this spring to complete work on a series of poems about Icelandic fishing culture. These poems will be published together with a suite of photographs by Mark Walton.

I have been invited to read my work at The Nordic House, Reykjavik in February, before spending the month of March as Writer in Residence at Herhus in Siglufjörður, a small town at the northernmost point of Iceland.

Photographs by Mark Walton

Vantar | Missing At Lady Margaret Hall

My year as Visual & Performing Artist in Residence at Lady Margaret Hall is drawing to a close, and this month the building was transformed by the appearance of Icelandic snowscapes: my new work, Vantar | Missing. Rather than turning one of the grand function rooms into a conventional exhibition space, Vantar | Missing was installed in the winding corridors at the heart of the college, which corresponded to the zigzag paths of the avalanche defences featured in the work. 

The avalanche is a subject that has haunted me since I first spent time in Iceland in 2012. Avalanches caused 198 deaths in Iceland during the twentieth century, but it was not until 1999 that avalanche defences were built around Siglufjörður, the small town at the northernmost tip of the island where I was living. Now, these subtle feats of engineering Stóri-boli (Big bull) and Litli-boli (Little bull) have become part of the mountain landscape, a barely perceptible human intervention dividing the town’s remaining inhabitants from the wilderness. 

This project has led to the publication of a new book and a print series, in which diptychs record changes in mountain snow cover and domestic interiors. The Icelandic word ‘vantar’ refers both to a lost object or person and to the experience of loss. People lost in the mountains are a frequent trope of Icelandic literature, from the sagas to contemporary crime fiction. I wanted to consider this theme from the angle of the people left behind.

Vantar / Missing

My new print series Vantar / Missing has just come off the press at Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol.

The series of six diptychs record the transitory fields of mountain snow cover and domestic linen over one winter in Siglufjörður, Iceland. The photographs were taken during a residency at Siglufjörður in Iceland during 2012.

Missing (‘Vantar’ in Icelandic) can refer both to a lost object or person and the experience of loss.

Avalanches caused 193 deaths in Iceland during the twentieth century. It was not until 1999 that avalanche defences were built around the northern town of Siglufjörður. Stóri-boli (Big bull) and Litli-boli (Little bull) wind around the mountains just above the town’s highest buildings. This barely perceptible human intervention divides the town from the mountain wilderness.

Vantar / Missing will be exhibited at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in May this year.

Susan Richardson - Writing in the Language of Ice

A new feature in my Arctic Arts blog for the Huffington Post examines the work of Welsh poet Susan Richardson, who has retraced the footsteps of the tenth-century Icelandic traveller Gudrid across the Arctic. Susan's dedication to writing on environmental themes and the considered way she charts the boundaries between exploration and exploitation has been a great inspiration to me. You can read my interview with her here.

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Books arranged by height on the shelves of the Icelandic Poetry Centre

in Siglufjörður.

Borrowed Bookshelves: 6

The bookshelf of Guðný Róbertsdóttir (teacher) and Örlygur Kristfinnsson 
(museum director) in Siglufjörður, Iceland.

Herring Heaven

I've been writing about the collections in The Herring Era Museum - Síldarminjasafnið - in Siglufjörður, Iceland. One of my chosen highlights is their collection of food tins dating back to the 1960s, when the fishing industry was booming in the region and exporting herring all over the world. 

So here's a chart of my top ten herring tins: 

Gills and Pills

The small town of Siglufjörður was once the capital of Iceland's herring industry. No wonder that at last Saturday's  Kvæðamannamót - a raucous performance of traditional song and verse by rimurs from all over the country - many of the works were about fishing. 


There was even one song in English ...

The Herring Song


The herring is the king of the sea

The herring is the fish for me

The herring is the king of the sea

Sing fol the do or die


Oh what'll we do with the herring's eyes?

We'll make them into puddings and pies

We'll make them into puddings and pies

And all sorts of things.
Herring's eyes, puddings and pies

And all sorts of things.


The herring is the king of the sea …


Oh what'll we do with the herring's heads?

We'll make them into loaves of bread

We'll make them into loaves of bread

And all sorts of things.

Herring's heads, loaves of bread


Herring's eyes, puddings and pies


And all sorts of things.

Oh, what'll we do with the herring’s gills?

We’ll make ’em into physical pills ...


Oh what'll we do with the herring's backs?

We'll make them into laddies and jacks…


Oh what'll we do with the herring's fins?

We'll make them all into needles and pins…


Oh what'll we do with the herring's tail?
We'll make a ship with a beautiful sail

We'll make a ship with a beautiful sail

And all sorts of things.
Herring's tails, ships with sails
Herring's fins, needles and pins

Herring’s gills, physical pills

Herring's backs, laddies and jacks


Herring's heads, loaves of bread


Herring's eyes, puddings and pies


And all sorts of things.

With thanks to the Herring Era Museum for the photographs of Siglufjörður  fisherfolk.