BEAM is a new kind of climate institution — part creative studio, part research lab, part public imagination engine. Founded by Annie Chen and Zoe Lee, BEAM approaches the climate crisis as both a planetary emergency and a cultural inflection point—one that demands new connective tissue between science, technology, ecology, and society. Their work investigates how emerging technologies meet lived context, how communities build power and agency, and how shared imaginaries shape the futures people are willing to work toward. 

BEAM partners with science-led and climate-action organizations to translate complex work into clarity — building tools, public narratives, and impact campaigns that turn research into something people can understand, trust, and act on. Drawing from expertise in biology, behavioral decision sciences, and design, BEAM brings interdisciplinary fluency and sociotechnical expertise to collaborations spanning ocean restoration, biotechnology, community resilience, and climate governance. 

BEAM’s work has been supported by NEW INC, The New York Foundation for the Arts, the Interlace Fund, UNESCO Ocean Decade, MIT Open Documentary Lab, and a wide ecosystem of blue-sector collaborators.

EXPERIENCE + WORK @ FISH FACTORY

We spent our residency at Fish Factory working on TIDELANDS, a game and film about coastal futures on the U.S. East Coast. We brought part of our team—Annie, Zoe, Ellen, and Ryan—to Stöðvarfjörður to focus on the project and push it to the next phase of development.

Most days were spent worldbuilding: research on the aquaculture systems and low-fi solarpunk technologies of the New Alchemists of the ‘70s, making a big map of the Rhode Island coastline, painting, filming, recording sound, prototyping in Unreal, cooking a lot, and wandering around the surrounding landscape. Being in a place so intimately tied to fish (literally!) and water shaped how we thought about community, place, and change.

We met people from town, filmed local band Sarasótt, and got to be there for the inauguration of Fish Factory as a cultural center in the Eastfjords. Mostly, it was just a generous, grounding place to think, make, and be together. We miss Fish Factory already, and hope to return soon <3

https://beamstudio.earth

https://www.instagram.com/beam.earth

Eleanor Sykes is an illustrator and author based in Scotland. Working predominantly with mixed media on paper, she brings together themes of traditional folk practice and childhood imagination through her storytelling imagery.

She spent her residency filling a small collection of empty sketchbooks with quick and intuitive drawings that were inspired by an entirely new way of existing, making the shift from working and living in the city to the quietness of Stöðvarfjörður.

Embracing the humanness of being slow and surrounded by nature, local folklore and tradition became present in her illustrations and reflected her experience of childhood within the experience of inhabiting somewhere new and beautiful.

www.eleanorsykes.co.uk

@eleanorsykesillustrator

Jane Affleck is a is a writer and artist based in Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island (PEI), which is on the east coast of Canada and part of Mi’kma’ki, the unceeded lands of the Mi’kmaq people. Jane has taught undergrad-level writing, English lit, and art history courses. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including The Great Lakes Review, feral feminisms, Taproot, C Magazine, and Visual Arts News. Jane has received grants to support various academic, research-creation, and art or writing projects, including most recently from PEI Arts Grants to support the residency at Fish Factory. They have also been shortlisted for several writing prizes, including first prize in the creative non-fiction category in the PEI Writers’ Guild’s Island Literary Awards in 2023. Her ink and watercolour drawings have been in group exhibitions across Canada and online.

“June 2025 was my second residency at Fish Factory — exactly 8 years since the first. But the fjord, the village, and Fish Factory were all much as I remembered them (though several renovation projects have changed the building a bit!). Some of the mountains showed only a little wear and tear at the very tops (at heights I’d not dared to climb even when younger), but the moss, the crowberries, the willow, the flowering plants, and the whimbrels, snipes, wagtails, eider ducks, and terns — all were whole-heartedly busy with their own summertime creative processes of growing and nesting and blooming. So Fish Factory was again the perfect setting for the intensive focus required to finish a draft of a complex project.

The quiet studios in the village surrounded by myriad forms of life on the mountains provided daily antidote to the challenges of writing a long-form work crossing genres of dystopia, climate fiction (cli-fi), and solar punk (it’s really a thing!), and with themes that include gender-based violence… And after returning home, my time in Fish Factory inspired a short zine project called Júní / June, which contrasts the peacefulness of the east fjords with the bombings that happened that month in Iran.

Takk fyrir to Kris and Vid and everyone else at Fish Factory for such an amazing month — hope to see you all again before another 8 years goes by!”

Website: https://www.jane-affleck.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/being_littoral/

Montana van Duijn is a Maine based artist who interacts with her world through performance, video, and natural landscapes. Her work is based around finding her spirituality through the connection she can find through body based contact to the natural world. This is often shown through video based pieces, and installations.

During her time at Fish Factory van Duijn focused more on her illustration based skills, creating a set of “Divinity cards” that act as a way to visually showcase her beliefs, and what she holds dear to her in this life. The cards are a means of processing, sharing, and connecting to her spirituality through a visually based set of “rules”. As well as the Divinity cards, van Duijn created a sound based “album”.

Through old voice memos, voice messages, and collecting sounds from Iceland, she created a soundscape that moves you through the emotions surrounding her breakup with her long term partner, the death of her grandmother and best friend, and the anger that comes from the societies she lives in today. Van Duijn’s skill set for creating music is completely intuitive, and based minimally on practical skill.

Van Duijn found a solace experimenting within this art form, though, and the mountains and waters of Iceland sang through to make way for the album to be created. The final products of van Duijn’s time at Fish Factory were a cohesive album made into a cassette tape, and a full 12 piece deck of Divinity cards.

Website: https://www.montanadorte.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/montanart22/

Nick Wishart is an interdisciplinary artist and musician whose work merges sound, light, and movement. Using custom-built electronic instruments, sensors, and code, he creates immersive performances and installations that transform gesture and environment into audiovisual experiences. His practice explores the boundaries between technology, art, and play.

“I had an incredible time at the Fish Factory residency, where I focused on refining my live set and developing new ideas. A real highlight was performing at the Tiny Church in Stöðvarfjörður. I also captured extensive slow-motion and timelapse footage of the stunning East Icelandic landscape, which I’ve since woven into my audio reactive live visuals.

Thanks for all your hard work helping us with this project!”

nick wishart

Thank you, Nick!

Madelyn Gowler is a queer, film-based artist focusing on materiality and experimental processes of image making. They are currently residing in the Canadian prairies – Winnipeg, MB and received their BFA from the University of Manitoba. They mainly work with textiles, installation, super 8 film, and analog photography. Their practice focuses on meditative processes of deconstruction, repurposing, and film as subject. Their films
have been screened locally and internationally at ‘Engauge Experimental Film Festival’ in Seattle, WA, USA (2023), ‘Experiments in Cinema v18.4’ in Albuquerque, NM, USA (2023), and ‘Saint Bimbo: Film Church No.11’ in Ridgewood, NY, USA. Gowler’s work has been exhibited at Ace Art Inc. (2025) in “Poetics of Light: Experiments in Photography”, MAWA (2025) in “Seamless Transitions”, and the University of Manitoba Collections Gallery (2023) in “Indeterminate Limits”.

The project I was working on at the Fish Factory was a direct animation using 16mm and 35mm film. I started the residency making phytograms on film, which is a process started by Karel Doing – soaking objects in a solution of washing soda and vitamin c powder then placing it on light sensitive materials. I used sea water to mix the solution then soaked rocks, sand, grass, and seaweed, placing it on unexposed 16mm film emulsion. I also taught a phytogram workshop outside with the community using both film and darkroom paper. The group had brought leaves, flowers, sticks, and rocks.

I used previously shot film and my phytogrammed film to etch, collage, draw, write, cut, hole-punch, cyanotype, and stamp onto. I carved lino to mimic the northern lights we’d seen one night. The short clips of text I incorporated were inspired by my stay – “Crunch under the soft bed” was from walking on a moss covered
mountain, hearing the crunch and shifting of the eroded rocks beneath. “Lie down for the all encompassing blue” was drawn from being so relaxed gazing upon the blue of the water and lying on the trampoline, looking up at the clear blue sky – the title of my film will be “All Encompassing Blue”

I took field recordings for my film while I was working by the water. The sound of the water running along the rocks was indescribable, sounding kind of like tiny bells chiming all at once. I then layered improvised piano playing overtop of the singing water and rocks. One of my side projects was weaving film and seaweed around rocks I found by the water. I loved playing
around with the variety of shapes and colours of the rocks, the different hues of seaweed, and the visuals of the film I had on hand. I also photographed a lot of the town on film, as well as playing around in the ceramic room, experimenting with making whistles. I had managed to make a whistle in the shape of a fish!

https://www.madelyngowler.com/

Instagram: @ma_elyn

Daria, a Ukrainian artist, sketcher, and visual storyteller currently based in Czechia.

My month at the residency felt like an art adventure, a rare chance to fully dive into my practice. Coming from Ukraine, landscapes hold a therapeutic weight for me, and painting them in bold colors became a way to process both movement and memory.

I carried my Fujifilm camera on every hike with fellow residents, capturing moments on both digital and black-and-white film, later developing the rolls in the darkroom.

Evenings were spent editing and retouching footage for my YouTube project, weaving together the day’s sketches and journeys. This balance of studio focus and outdoor exploration grounded me, turning the residency into both creative work and healing.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/da_zhga/

The Land Rover – a temporary sculpture

When I came to the fish factory I had the intention of making a UFO. This sort of happened, but so did lots of other things.

I did a collaboration with Rachel Saxby. I handed over some test videos and we discussed how she could play with the video content, and do as she wanted with it. The results were interesting, and we ended up with an audiovisual composition that somehow works.

While walking around the village, I saw a Mk1 Land Rover, and wished I had one to explore Iceland with. So I decided to make one using my temporary cardboard sculpture technique.

During the build I modified it, mounting it on a computer chair to make it mobile. I spent a few hours a day constructing the Land Rover while thinking, why the hell am I doing this? I could just go for a walk or something, but regardless, I continued. To stabilise and hold it together, I used some ratchet straps from the metal workshop.

Now it was time to take it outside, to go exploring. We spun the Land Rover around, discussing what to do with it. We pushed it around and parked it for a while. After more discussion, we took it to a small hill and pushed it down. 1-2-3, action: the Land Rover speeds down the hill, starts to drift, skids. Doink. It collapses on its side. The aerial view shows the action from above and some phone camera footage captures it passing at ground level.

In other news, the UFO was, in some ways, a failure. I’d anticipated taking it deeper into the landscape, but something did happen: the UFO was inflated, and this balloon-type structure was moved around on the pier, almost abducting some participants, swallowing them into a metallic blob. It danced around a bit, then deflated, rolled up and disappeared. All captured by drone pilot in aerial view.

I also made some classic Test videos using a hot water bottle as the subject. I’m still not sure what it means.

To give some context as to what the tests are, they are an ongoing archive of kinetic installations that use various materials and objects as a subject and then record the actions.

https://lee-websight.web.app

Thank you, Lee! :)

Tania Joanna Van Hoofstadt is a Belgian mixed media artist. Originally trained as an architect, she found herself craving more creative freedom—and about 20 years ago, she turned to sculpture and painting.

Since then, her work has evolved into a tactile exploration of texture, color, and material. From moss and lichen to metal scraps and engine parts, she dives into both natural and man-made worlds, zooming in until the smallest details become vast imagined landscapes. Macro photography plays a key role: a thin layer of cambium becomes a canyon; a pebble becomes a planet. Through her collages, installations, and machines, she invites viewers into these miniature universes.

Lately, she’s been capturing new “sceneries” using her handmade Landscape Slicer—a quirky, low-tech alternative to a 360° camera. Not quite efficient, but twice the fun. Because for Tania, playfulness is essential: nothing should ever get too serious.

Her first residency in Iceland, at the Fish Factory, has been everything she hoped for. Surrounded by wild landscapes and shelves stacked with wheels, tubes, and music instrument parts, she felt like she walked into her version of Valhalla.

A new Landscape Slicer was built, and ideas for more gloriously useless machines are already brewing. Maybe during the next residency?

https://www.taniajoannavanhoofstadt.be/

Thank you, Tania! :)

During my residency at The Fish Factory this July, I developed a sound-art project called Teel-Dah, which aims to redefine how sound can be used as a tool for healing. Inspired by ancient sound healing traditions, the project explores the therapeutic effects of natural sounds and frequencies on mental health. I focused on capturing field recordings of natural elements such as wind and water from the surrounding environment. Using the studio’s analog equipment, I combined these recordings with Tibetan singing bowls, emphasizing their healing frequencies and their connection to three of the seven chakras.

This residency was deeply personal. As a Scandinavian artist living in London, it offered a unique opportunity to reconnect with my roots and incorporate nature’s rhythms—similar to those found in Iceland, a place renowned for its happiness and balance—into my work. The result is a series of sound compositions designed to alleviate stress, depression, and emotional imbalance.

I am a music producer, singer and sonic artist from Sweden and have now been based in vibrant South East London for over a decade. My artistic exploration delves into alternative soundscapes that seamlessly blend melancholic melodies, soul, jazz, and cinematic elements. Drawing inspiration from the raw beauty of Scandinavia and ancient folk traditions like ‘Kulning,’ I aim to evoke deep emotion through my voice. My work has garnered attention from Discover Mag, POP Matters, Dummy Mag, Worldplay Mag, Spindle Mag, Swedish GAFFA, and BBC Introducing.As an artist I distinguish myself through innovative live production, adept use of field recordings and samples, and a fusion of alternative sounds. Earmilk praised my commitment to pushing artistic boundaries, particularly evident in my release “Theme II,” establishing me as a pioneering artist unafraid to tackle complex themes through music.

My work has left a lasting impression on listeners and tastemakers worldwide. I was honored to be named ‘Artist of the Week’ by BBC Introducing, and my vocals and songwriting have been featured on Channel 4 and Sky TV, solidifying my presence in the global music landscape. Beyond music, I strive to engage audiences with a multifaceted artistic vision that resonates across various media platforms.

My sound is influenced by eclectic acts such as James Blake, Massive Attack, Sunda Arc, Burial, Björk, Laura Misch, and FKA Twigs, creating a unique auditory experience that blends triphop, ambient, and jazz-fused electronica.

I’ve had the privilege of supporting artists and performing at iconic events and venues including Lava La Rue, SK Shlomo, Haiku Hands, Normanton Street, Boomtown Festival 2023, Glastonbury Festival 2023, Lazer Hazer 2023 (Prague), The Revival Festival (Colombia), The Bimble Inn Festival (Dorset), The Alternative Escape Festival (Brighton), Hultsfreds Festivalen (Sweden), The Victorious Festival (Portsmouth), Brighton Pride Festival, The Brit Awards Afterparty (London), Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club (London), Oslo Hackney (London), Troy Bar (London), Colours Hoxton (London), and Hootananny Brixton (London).

Toni Cinderella is a multidisciplinary artist from the east coast of the U.S and has returned for a second time at the Fish Factory! Her work explores the notion of making things with love through connecting with nature and looking at elements of folk art, decorative art, and anything wholesome and cute.

During her residency, she worked on a series of marker illustrations that were inspired by the breathtaking landscapes of Iceland. The flower gardens and fabric collections at Petra’s Stone Museum also heavily influenced her drawings. She spent a lot of time outside taking videos of water, birds, and the iconic sister mountains of Stöðvarfjörður. These were accompanied by recorded bird calls, waves, organ, theremin, and her voice to collage together in her short and sweet video and sound pieces.

Her work looks deep into her own spirituality, femininity, and are love letters that state her gratefulness while admiring the complex yet simplistic beauty of the natural world around us.

https://antoinettecinderella.com

Matt Stober is a multi-instrumentalist/composer from the East Coast of the United States. In July 2025 he returned to the Fish Factory for the second time. In addition to his solo work under his own name, he is the creator of the post-rock/math-rock Instrumental band, In-Dreamview.

While there he recorded a 17 track instrumental album, ICELAND II, which is the follow-up sequel to his album from his last trip in 2024. ICELAND II consists of mostly piano and drum-driven tracks that are inspired by the many beautiful geographic and animal features of Austurland. You can find a link to the full album on bandcamp in his instagram bio.

https://mattstober.bandcamp.com

Orli Swergold is a Brooklyn–based artist and curator whose hand-wrung paper-pulp paintings—applied to wood and metal substrates—investigate physicality by balancing the rigor of manual labor with delicate, up-close patterning. Treated as organismic entities, their wobbly or outstretched gestures reach beyond the rectangle to elicit empathy on a humanoid level. For Swergold, painting is serious play: a paradoxical collaboration with materials that blends control and unpredictability. Drawing on topography and psycho-mapping, she charts external and internal landscapes with channels, moats, rivers, and wings, while her uncanny color palette bridges the natural and artificial. By transforming pulp into layered networks of religious icons, bodily silhouettes, butterflies, letters, and fungal growth, her metamorphic works oscillate between the abject and the sublime, inviting reflection on alienation, tenderness, modern anxieties, and identity.

Swergold earned a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Brandeis University (2018) and received an M.F.A. in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (2021), where she exhibited in three juried group shows and won the Graduate Commons Grant. Her work is in the Brandeis University Library Art Collection and she has exhibited at Asya Geisberg Gallery, 81 Leonard Gallery, and Stephen Street Gallery. She has curated exhibitions at Soloway Gallery and the Cigar Factory LIC.

Photos by @esra_post

https://orliswergold.com

https://fishfactory.is/2025/08/orli-swergold

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”.

@the.lex.lindsay

www.lexlindsay.com

I spent a lot of time in Iceland just feeling and thinking. At @fishfactory I felt ready to explore without an end goal. I spent my days relearning to use my hands; playing guitar chords and making ceramics even though I have no skill in either. I made linoleum stamps, wrote poetry, made copies and spent many moments by the shore or in the water. In between these moments I felt my larger thoughts about my political pieces shifting and I rediscovered intuitive making in my video practice. 

I slowed down and nurtured the need for idle contemplation and experience. What pieces shift back into place when you remember what it is to exist presently in the body? Online slogans, like “cry about it” became premonitions or advice from the landscape. An Icelandic cure for being lost in the woods came to be a call to action in simplicity. One of the most radical things to participate in during times like these is to slow down, feel, and know there are certain truths that cannot be taken from you, like community and freedom…

Ritual, loss, cycles and time became familiar friends in Stödvarfjordur and I was excited to explore texture not just in the physical landscape, but the political one as well.

I left with a few projects started and ongoing with the hopes of returning soon to see them out 💙

Thanks to the amazing creatives I spent my time with @katelittletonrob @arimeyaki @brianconeryart @being_littoral @jessiekilguss

And of course Kris and Vid for always answering my many questions.

https://kileybrandt.com

Jessie Kilguss is a singer, songwriter and performer based in Brooklyn, New York.

She has released 5 albums, most recently What Do Whales Dream About at Night in 2022.

She sang harmony and played the harmonium with Freddie Stevenson, opening for the Waterboys all over Europe on their Modern Blues tour.

Kilguss is a former actress who made the switch to songwriting after working with some of her musical heroes, Marianne Faithfull and Mary Margaret O’Hara, in the London and Sydney productions of The Black Rider, a musical written by Tom Waits and William Burroughs, directed by Robert Wilson. This experience inspired her to start writing her own music. Other acting highlights include a UK production (and subsequent UK & US tour) of As You Like It, directed by Royal Shakespeare Company founder, Sir Peter Hall and the film adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, starring Daniel Day Lewis and Winona Ryder.

I came to Fish Factory with the goal of writing 8-10 new songs. I’m happy to report I finished 9 new songs while there. I felt very lucky to have the use of Studio Silo, including all the instruments, to myself for the month. The view of the mountain, the fjord and the sky out the window was in constant flux and was mesmerizing and inspiring. I found the 24/7 daylight energizing. I started every day around 6am and headed straight to the studio to sit in the window, watch the view and write.

I usually write on acoustic guitar but was thrilled to have the use of a couple of electric guitars and a piano while I was there. I wrote most of my new songs on electric guitar and will be making the switch to this instrument now that I’m back in Brooklyn. It’s so much cooler than an acoustic guitar. I also brought a couple small synths with me and was writing on those as well.

I found the dedicated time and space for writing incredibly productive. When I’m at home I usually reach a certain point with a song and put it down to deal with various things in my day-to-day life. At Fish Factory, I had the luxury of time and space and was cut off from the demands of everyday life. I felt that I was able to go deeper with the process of songwriting by having this uninterrupted time. I also found it freeing to experiment with different instruments.

Stödvarfjordur is incredibly beautiful and peaceful. I especially enjoyed Petra’s Stone Museum and became and amateur rock collector while there, as did everyone else in my cohort. I really enjoyed getting to know the other participants in the residency and was inspired by their various disciplines and projects. I feel incredibly lucky to have had a month at Fish Factory and hope to return one day.

Thank you to Fish Factory’s wonderful staff: Kris, Vid and Lukas and to my fellow residents: Jane, Ayano, Kiley, Kate and Brian.

Now that I’m back in New York, I’m looking forward to sharing my new songs live starting with on August 6^th at Sid Gold’s Request Room.

www.jessiekilguss.com

www.instagram.com/jessiekilguss

Brian Conery is a visual artist based in Richmond California, part of the Bay Area.

Before arriving at the Factory my practice was primarily about painting and works on paper. I came to Fish Factory wanting to explore abstraction more fully and also respond to any direct experiences here. At once I found the environment to be overwhelming and beautiful, the dominance of the fjord architecture, the sculpted cathedrals. Profound encounters with nature.

(…) During my time at the Factory I focused on 2D works on paper. This included small paintings and mixed media drawings, and experimented with small cyanotypes, using both natural and man made materials. I couldn’t resist drawing portions of the sea wall and also rediscovered the beauty in kelp leaves. Back home I have been collecting dried kelp and developing sculptural concepts such as seeing them as ‘bones’.(…)
Other projects included a ritual of writing the names of many friends lost in the last 4 years and tossing them into the ocean. (…)

Lately I have been thinking a lot about time, and its weight and meaning in this stage of my life. My experience here became more about time than I even expected, seeing it as fluid in a different way than at home, partly from 24 hour light but also a sense of absolute freedom. Along with the fluidity was a heightened awareness of sound, both the environment and water(…)

I think we all come to these places with lots of expectations of what we want to do and achieve, but I’ve tried to allow profound small moments to guide me. The ever present sea walls were a surprise and an inspiration. I’m certainly leaving here with more questions than answers, and more ideas to pursue with lots of material to inject into my daily studio practice going forward. Our cohort of 6 was a great mix of disciplines, and all serious creatives perfecting their craft, and a joy to get to know them and form a new community, if even for a short time.

Thank you to Kris, Vid, Lukas and Haffi and all the best to our wonderful cohort: Ayano, Jessie, Jane, Kate and Kiley.

Simon Berz is a transdisciplinary artist, drummer, and sound researcher from Switzerland who explores the intersection of natural environments, geology, and contemporary sound art. During a residency in Iceland in 2015, he began working intensively with Icelandic basalt stones—materials millions of years old—and developed the TECTONIC instrument, which combines these stones with real-time electronic processing. Using contact microphones, effects, and synthesizers, he creates immersive soundscapes that reflect the elemental forces of Icelandic nature.

In 2025, Simon returned to Iceland for the production of a new TECTONIC LP. To capture the unique creative process and the powerful Icelandic landscape, the Swiss filmmaker Andi Hofmann accompanied the project throughout the recording sessions at Studio Silo. Hofmann’s experienced eye and narrative sensibility resulted in a documentary that not only shows the making of the music but also visually conveys the dramatic interplay between nature, sound, and artistic collaboration.

Together, their work invites audiences into a sonic and visual world—where ancient stones, electronic innovation, and the Icelandic environment meet in both music and film.

Mariam Gouverneur Mckeown is a writer currently living in Suffolk, United Kingdom. She writes poems, essays and stories (in that order) about the things she sees and feels.

***

For me, one of the most difficult things about being a creative person is coming to terms with it. How silly it sounds sometimes to hear myself saying “I write,” in a world on fire. I feel an intense pressure (internal? external?) to explain and to justify the constant, near pathological urge to respond to this chaos (internal? external?) with the simple act of making. 

It was in this angsty state that I arrived in Iceland with no big project in mind and the vague worry that perhaps I wouldn’t manage to write anything at all. Within a day, the words were pouring out of me with a simplicity and easy pleasure that I hadn’t experienced in years. Maybe ever. Cheesy, perhaps, but true. 

We quickly settled into a vaguely cultish kinship. We shared skills and freshly baked bread and stories and everything else. We went on hikes and day-trips with the ever-generous Kris, went to a concert even, drank coffee with Lucas, painted easter eggs with the village kids, laid down flat in the middle of the street at 1am alone and watched the aurora dancing. We made ceramics and cyanotypes and spoons and wrote poems about each other. We laughed a lot and cried a lot and, above all else I think, we trusted one another and the place itself in a way that is very rare and even more special. 

Through all this, I made a wonderful discovery: all these not-writing things were helping me to write. I had heard this before, of course, but never experienced it for real until then. The cyanotypes I made clarified and expressed my feelings and thoughts around prayer in a way that words couldn’t have. Whittling encouraged an empty-mindedness that writing seldom does. And Stodvarfjordur is full of beauty. Freed from the strain of being my creative everything, and fed by so much wonder, my writing seemed to recall its own direction and clarity. 

Over April, I produced a collection of poems and essays (as yet untitled) all specific to and written during my time in Stodvarfjordur, which I hope to publish soon enough. The poem included here is part of that collection. The immediacy and simplicity of the landscape in particular encouraged a new playfulness in my work. The collection deals with loneliness, wonder, fear, prayer, hope, lunatic happiness, etc. 

I am proud of the work that I produced in Iceland, but more than proud I am really just grateful beyond words. The Fish Factory is the safest, kindest creative space I have encountered. At the Fish Factory, in Kris and Lucas’s boundless patience and generosity, in the locals’ welcoming attitude, and in the profound closeness and simple joy we shared as a cohort, I found a community that expanded the limits of what I thought that term could mean. I learnt to make and to talk about making, both my own and others, with a comfort and a thoughtfulness that I have not before. I was reminded of the real worth of it all. I grew up, really. 

Thank you, Fish Factory! Thank you fellow fishies! I love you! 

SOMETIMES (ALWAYS) 

sometimes the whole world just sets you on fire 

sometimes you’re just walking down the street and your knees go weak with it 

mountain swallowed red 

mountain exhaled black and white 

sometimes you wake up 

and the sun is taking 

one fantastic, double jointed 

wide armed stretch 

against your bedroom wall 

and even spellbound disbelief 

would be a blasphemy 

sometimes life is so good you can’t help but believe it 

Shelley Simpson is a visual artist from Aotearoa New Zealand. She attended the residency after completing her PhD.

“It is a long journey from Aotearoa to Iceland. I was interested to think about what it means to be a guest or manuhiri in such a place- so far from my home. In my creative practice I often work with minerals and metals and I was keen to find out how it would feel to be in a landscape such as Iceland. How might minerals be thought of as hosts? How might my strategies for working with earthly materials shift in a different location? The earth in Iceland felt very active- earthly forces are very apparent, boulders fall from mountains, volcanoes erupt, the ground shifts and flows. I visited the historic mine site at Helgustadir where the crystal Iceland Spar was mined. This crystal had a unique property – double refraction – and was used in imaging technology. I used the crystal in pinhole cameras, refracting the summer sun and capturing the light on photographic paper. Over the month of May in Stöðvarfjörður, the days grew longer and longer, until there was almost no night darkness. Walking home from the studio at 1am, the birds would be singing. Capturing light became my main activity during my time at the Fish Factory as I worked with seaweed and lupins to make lumen prints and cyanotypes. Light and shadow, air and earth, water and stone.

My fellow residents, Lex, Nicole, Fien, Adele, Naimh, and Einar filled the time there with great conversation, meals together, walks and working alongside. Kris, Lukas and all the other Fish Factory people were generous and kind. The Fish Factory building itself is an artist’s playground. Each day was a luxury filled with art making. Focus both blurred and sharpened, the mountains across the fjord were both close and far, scale shifted, all the rocks at Petra’s hummed with their long, slow existence. And the sun shone, and shone and shone.”

@shelleylsimpsonartist

www.shelleysimpson.co.nz

Peter Klett is an artist based in Washington, USA.

Thank you to my hosts Kris and Lukas; to everyone in and around the town of Stöðvarfjörður; and to my fellow residents Adele, Elise, Fien, Lulu, Marina, and Naomi. I am humbled by your kindness and generosity.

Fien Brakkee is a multimedia artist based in the Netherlands. Her work is a poetic and sensitive exploration of the physical and spiritual relations between the landscapes that surround us and the landscapes that live within us. Inspired by the ephemeral evidence of memory, vivid yet untouchable atmosphere of place and the sometimes elusive elements of our existence, Fien hopes for her work to create opportunities to slow down and pay attention to the tender and still things that our harsh, fast paced and chaotic society tend to rush past.

My time at Fish Factory was immensely glorious. It is hard to express the depth of impact it has had on me as an artist and also as a human being. Being here in this grand landscape has felt like meeting the earth in her most pure, wild and free form. Witnessing that and being among it has allowed me to grow, soften, connect, love, explore and experiment in ways I could have never imagined.

During my two month residency I followed the flow of days and the curiosity in my hands. I did many different things such as: continued my growing love for ceramics by handbuilding works and learning how to throw on the wheel, creating many cyanotypes with gatherings from the land, learning how to felt with Icelandic wool, carving my first spoon and writing, drawing and playing around endlessly. It was freeing to just spend my time making, without purpose or pressure. To follow my intuition and the inspiration this landscape gifted me. It opened up an opportunity to reflect on previous work, recognize the themes and wonderings that tie them all together and deepen those explorations further. The result is a body of work that feels like a beginning of things coming together and that fills me with excitement to continue on this path being here has set me on.

Looking back I will remember the beautiful walks and drives, many deep and sensitive conversations, the warm hugs and the laughs, the snow on the mountains, the singing birds at night, the dancing aurora in the sky, a glimpse of the midnight sun and making friends for life.

Leaving is hard but I go with bags full of inspiration and a heart full of tenderness and warmth. Thank you so much Kris and the whole team at Fish Factory, you created a magical place that I can’t wait to come back to one day.

my month long residency at fish factory was an entirely unexpected journey.

before getting here, i was at my residency in rural finland, wondering where i would go next. in the quiet winter and a deep conversation with my grandpa rock friend, they asked me:

“if you don’t have to worry about money or anything, where would you want to be in this world?”

the answer emerged almost immediately:
i want to go play with clay in iceland.

so by the time i arrived at fish factory, i had about $100 in my pocket.
this was the wildest way, even for a traveling artist, to follow nothing but my intuition to this magical, eerie place.

i spent the entire month basking in iceland’s strangeness, held in complete acceptance by my residency mates, diving deep into play with my inner child and other spirit beings.

my art is all about healing with my inner child and making art together with her.
this month, we sat together and decided to unpack a layer of memories and quiet grief surrounding my queerness.

we joined songwriting circles, shared stories of spirit encounters, spent long hours in the ceramics studios, and basked in the warmest, most vulnerable kind of conversations.

this place didn’t just accept my weirdness ———
it reminded me how sacred it is to be bathed in it.

fish factory embraced me unconditionally and gave me space to tell the stories that had been waiting to surface.

thank you, fish factory & my march residency mates!

https://seiustudio.art

Martina Solárová Pauleová is a visual artist from Slovakia. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in 1998. In her life, she has welcomed her sunny sons: Tadeáš, Martin, and Kristian.

In my recent work, the passage of time and shifts in scale play a central role. The piece is composed of layered paintings, photographs, and drawings.

Here at the Fish Factory residency, I’ve been working on a project called Invisible Tattoo. It’s about the stories we all carry inside — the ones no one else can see. Black and white photos of my dad on a ski trip as a student are hidden in the cat’s whiskers. This is a tattoo of happiness.

Thank you to all the friends I met here and to the Fish Factory! 🦭💘
Scott, Charlotte, Risa, Seiu, Shann, Alex, and Kris :)