Lex is a composer, theatre-maker and sometimes-visual-artist living on Gadigal Country (Sydney, Australia).

“On approaching my time in Iceland, I knew I wanted to learn more about the Hidden People. I’m interested in cultures that interact with nature spirits as a way to make sense of hostile environmental conditions. As human-driven climate change is making all environments more hostile, I’m interested in how the nature spirits and hidden folk might be experiencing or reacting to this. How does climate crisis and habitat loss impact their world? So, this was the thread I was following.



I often make collages to help me find and develop a musical work. In Reykjavik, I chanced upon a book about Captain James Cook’s colonising voyages to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific (in Icelandic?!). It quickly fell under my scalpel. This got me thinking about other kinds of ‘Hidden People’ – those whose lives and stories have been intentionally erased… the Indigenous peoples of Australia, brutally overrun by the malignant myth of Terra Nullius… our trans and gender-queer kindred whose hard-fought ‘visibility’ is being denied by the current US administration… These ideas and others swam around under the watch of the Mountainside, and under a unifying concept of We, The Hidden. I landed on a collection of lyrics and songs that I’m now developing further.

Central to the recordings I made at the Fish Factory is “the Tinkle Piano” (I will try to come up with a better name for it!), a prepared piano made by hanging gem stones and Balinese prayer coins on the strings of one of the old uprights at the Factory. This little video captures my first improvisation with it, getting to know how the tinkling and chiming works.
An enchanted sense of happenstance was the pervasive vibe of my time in Stöðvarfjörður. Things seemed to appear and disappear as needed. Clues to artworks surfaced everywhere. On the way, on a hunch, I picked up a kit for making cyanotype prints. Amazingly, on arriving at the Fish Factory, my fellow residents Shelley, Fien, Nicole and I discovered we all had materials and an interest in cyanotypes.





It was such a joy to be working alongside each other, both together and on our own, playing with the chemical processes and comparing notes. 20 hours of daylight, an added convenience for solar printing. I found the cyanotypes were another way to access ideas about what is hidden and what can be revealed.





Thank you Kris, Lukas, Haffi, and my dear fellow residents. What an absolute privilege and pleasure it was to spend the most magical month of May with you in that very special place”.

Instagram: @the.lex.lindsay
Website: www.lexlindsay.com