Taneli Törmä and Caroline McSweeney joined us at the Factory in May. Taneli is a Finnish choreographer, performer, and Artistic Director of Location X dance company and Caroline McSweeney is an Irish theatre director and Artistic Director of Locus Theater company. With the help of sound designer Esa Mattila they engaged with the local fishing community and collected research for their performance project, Dance of the Fisherman.

The project is a site-specific performance created for Nordic harbours for the Passage Festival in Helsingør Denmark 2022, with further plans to take it to Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Ireland. This is an imagistic walking tour  – with choreography and images drawn from the physical world of fishing and hunting unheard stories from the leisure to the working fisherman/woman they create a universal interactive performance.

“It was an inspiring opportunity for us to stay one month in Stöðvarfjörður. To take the time for researching our upcoming site-specific performance called Dance of the Fisherman, which will be created later on for different European fishing harbours. In our residency, we created dance and sound material and started to speak about the dramaturgy of the performance. We were lucky to meet up with local fishermen and their families, who we could interview to record stories and local traditions, which will be used in the performance. The community history, culture, and local fishing habits will affect the outcome of the performance, which will have its premiere later on in the Passage Festival, Denmark in July 2022. The final result will be an imagistic walking tour, where the audience is physically drawn into the world of the fisherman.”

“We were happy to share our residency time with other artists from other arts fields, who inspired us and gave us constructive feedback from our working progress presentation, which we organised for the local community at the of our residency.”

Taneli & Caroline´s interview:

Yasemin is a Turkish U.S. based visual artist. During her stay in Iceland in April, she worked on a project involving drawing, painting and written elements.

As I spent more time in the factory surrounded by talented artists who all bring a unique voice to the table, I felt lucky to practice and live amongst them in the enchanting site of Stodvarfjordur. It took a lot of trial and error to settle on what I wanted to do at the studio and how to do it. In the end, I took a more improvisational approach to organize my ideas visually by layering, pushing and pulling elements of the drawings, and ended up with collages and realistic renderings of a variety of images.

The landscape in the east fjords of Iceland, as many come to find out for themselves is magnificent and ever-changing. I wanted to collect certain moments from the rhythms of nature such as the glow of a full moon, the ripples at a given moment on the sea, and ice as it melts. Drawing helped me understand these scenes intimately, and reconstruct them with additional elements such as symbols, letters, and sceneries that these moments brought to mind.

Yasemin´s interview:

Thank you Yasemin!<3

Sarah Ingraham is a Brooklyn based painter and textile artist. Her work is influenced by a background in rug making and wallpaper design. Combining her knowledge of art history with the tradition of still life, she investigates and reinterprets ancient motifs through colour to create a more contemporary palette. During her time at the residency, she created a series of three, large scale still life paintings on canvas. The wonderfully stark backdrop of Iceland acted as inspiration and encouraged even more intensity and exploration of colour in the work.

“As an artist who typically works out of my home, the fish factory was great. It gave me the opportunity to travel, be somewhere beautiful and new, and still have the freedom to maintain my usual schedule. I spent my days alternating between hiking and painting, which I think is very good for any creative brain.”

Zoë Power is a multi-disciplinary artist, working in the fields of illustration, print and typography. She spent her time at the Factory cutting out lino and printing in our print workshop. She made multiple prints of her signature style figures. Graduating from Multidisciplinary Print Media and with a love of craft and typography, Zoë studied traditional signwriting and frequently works with individuals and creative teams to make their businesses look more beautiful.

 Currently, Zoë is involved in several community arts projects across the UK, working with local residents and organisations to bring art to the wider community.

Zoe´s interview:

See more of her work here: https://www.zoepower.com/zoe-power-home

Thank you Zoe!<3

Daisy Brown is a multidisciplinary artist from London, UK, specialising in cameraless photography. During her residency stay in April, she spent time using sustainable chemical processes with as minimal labour as possible to document light and immediate reactions to space. Being interested in light, which is in abundance this time of year in East Iceland, Daisy documented the fleeting movements and refractions bouncing around the Fish Factory.

“I spent my time at the factory chaotically juggling idea after idea, energised by the artists, the malleability of the factory to suit my needs, and the opportunity to have dedicated time towards my practice. During the month, I nurtured techniques and skills I hadn’t had the time to explore throughout my degree, producing lumen prints, pinhole cameras, DIY developers, fixatives (using seawater from the fjord), pigment from minerals (skillfully taught to me by Ayelet) and ceramics, alongside lino, mono and collagraph printing.

I found myself with the same fascination as most creatives who come here; I was constantly perplexed by the landscape and ecology, wanting to collect, learn and explore. As a result, a lot of my time was spent outside, going on long walks and cycles, attempting to map Stöðvarfjörður. I would gather moss, minerals and anything I could find, trying to piece together artefacts in an attempt to understand further where I was living and weave these into the new processes I was learning. 

The Fish Factory is an incredibly healing, reinvigorating space which offers freedom to explore your practice within a bustling environment alongside other creatives. It was a huge privilege to be part of the residency program and be given time, access, and the opportunity to slow down and reconnect with nature and my practice.”

Daisy´s interview:

Thank you Daisy!<3

Eliza is a London based artist who spent two months with us at the Fish Factory. “While living in Stöðvarfjörður, I have been working on a project about my personal relationship with world-building, escapism and healing through making, while exploring different possibilities of picture-making. Using primarily painting and drawing, I have become committed to bringing a narrative of vulnerability and gentleness into an art world which can feel unfeeling and cold to me. My relocation to Iceland coincided with a realisation about the importance of slowing down, both in my studio practice and in the practice of healing. I spent my first few weeks at the Fish Factory focusing on only drawing and began to observe that the more I drew, the more of this world which I was building, revealed itself to me. 

I have been given the space to start working on a short 2D animation, Carescapes, taking influences from Icelandic Folklore and world-building video games. My practice throughout my degree has been disrupted by the pandemic. Restricted access to studios has meant students have been made to adapt to domestic and digital spaces. My time at the Fish Factory has allowed me to make use of facilities, try processes I haven’t had the chance to yet, and be involved in a studio culture outside of University. I am so grateful for this opportunity, I hope I’ll be back soon!”  

Eliza Moore is a multidisciplinary artist based in London, UK. Currently, in her third year at Central Saint Martins, the pandemic has disrupted the majority of their Fine Arts degree. Restricted access to studio spaces has meant students have been made to adapt to domestic and digital spaces. During her time at the Fish Factory, Eliza Moore worked on a project exploring her personal relationship between queerness, escapism, and world-building, while exploring different possibilities of picture-making. They have used their time at the Factory to slow down their studio practice. Moore’s work holds an array of signs and symbols influenced by video games, Icelandic folk tales, and witchcraft.

Thank you Eliza <3

Ayelet is an Israeli artist who came back to Iceland to rediscover her art form. Staying here in April, she embraced the Icelandic nature and made her own stone pigments to paint with.

I wanted to join the art residency to find my voice as an artist, a woman, and as a human in this world. Before coming here, I felt as if I was a fraud, not a real artist. I didn’t study art (besides my major in high school), I am not a professional artist either, and I didn’t create for a long time. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it.

Likewise, I chose to create my own pigments made out of stones, and minerals I foraged in nature. The process was long and so little material came out of it. It made me appreciate the work even further.

It took time for me to settle and realise what I wanted to paint, but it eventually clicked. Photography played a significant role in my day today. I took pictures of the ever-changing climate of East Iceland: the surrounding mountains, trees and the sea. It became my muse. I found my place with these amazing artists who accepted me as I am and as my art is. This experience taught me that I never had to find my voice in the first place, Just the courage to say – I am who I am and I’m an artist.

Thank you, Ayelet <3

Sioned Knight is an artist based in South East London. Spending the month of March at the Fish Factory, Sion reimagined the Icelandic nature and her surroundings with her signature bright colours.

I create large, bright paintings of imagined landscapes. My paintings are completely made up and allow the viewer to be transported to somewhere that exists only in my mind. They are surreal in composition and colour. I am exaggerating the idea that nature is bigger and bolder than the viewer.

You can check Sioned´s work here:

sionthepainter.com/about

Thank you Sion!

Guillermo Mena is a visual artist and animator, born in Los Cóndores, Córdoba, Argentina. During his stay at the Fish Factory in March, he engaged with the factory´s spaces by projecting onto them. Within his work, he is exploring natural geological phenomena through drawing and animation. Taking different elements in the landscape to conform to fictitious images or landscapes that explores ephemerality, displacement and notions of attachment/detachments around a nomadic way of living.

My wandering practice is closely tied to a sense of place and the tension between belonging and dislocation, while also exploring themes of environmental catastrophe, utopia/dystopia, science fiction, ephemerality and nostalgia. Using drawing as a primal tool, I’m interested in the expanded potential of it within the places that we transitory inhabit, the poetic and symbolic aspect of material behaviour as impermanent, volatile and mark maker.

More of his work: https://guillermomena.com/en_US/

Guillermo´s interview:

Thank you Guillermo!

Margarita´s interview:

Thank you Mar! <3

Over two months living in Iceland, I knit green screen sculptural forms meant to evoke portal objects from Norse mythology: Odin’s nine teleportation rings, a bridge between heaven and earth, and a pair of sacrificial pants made from human flesh. My stay at the fish factory provided me with the space to both develop concepts and create tangible materials to further utilize in my practice.

Check out more of Kristina´s work here:
https://kristinastallvik.cargo.site/

Thank you Kristina :)

Ruby is a British artist who spent the month of a snowy March at our residency.

“My practice is focused on depicting personal mythology that explores the changing and surreal landscapes found in dreams, working primarily in painting and drawing. The documentation of organic material has become its own practice, as this research not only feeds the creation of my work but has encouraged a newfound fascination for the traditional wisdom that encases the nature of plants, forests and land. Influenced by this, and the folklore that surrounds both plants native to the landscape I’m settled in, alongside the history pertaining to that area, these topics are conveyed through the use of symbolism in my works.”

Accompanying the study of natural flora and its myth is the depiction of women whose narratives are centric to my works; firstly representations of an emotion personified, these figures are part of the landscape and are variations of a painted woman battling the obscure war of a violent nature, instead of abiding with it. As traditional archetypes would have once shown them. They are now appreciations of significant women within folklore or my own personal mythology. Much like that of witches, Mother Nature and creatures like Jenny Greenteeth are portrayed in storybooks.

These characters are pictured in imaginary landscapes that capture an essence of where I have once been physical, combined with the elusive and surreal dreamscape – which explores a darker narrative personal to my own healing, both mental and physical. My perception of an environment changes when I search for particular aspects, as the concept of a close experience, engaging with the environment, guides most of the decisions I make when creating new works.

 “Living in Stöðvarfjörður was an opportunity to create a new body of work inspired by the Icelandic landscape, folklore and mythology; using the natural resources around me to their fullest potential. The difference between the city and the pastoral setting of East Iceland was a breath of relief, as I often feel closed in by the all-consuming humdrum of city life. 

The Fish Factory itself was in an excellent location, and each day I was excited to spend time in the studio space alongside the other artists in residence, who are all wonderful people. Having somewhere to work this month was highly encouraging as I had arrived during a period of ‘art block’ after spending the last year or so as a student without a studio space, and being at the Factory instilled a new sense of energy in me. It was a time I’m unlikely to ever forget and I’ll miss the landscape, the Factory and the people I met during my stay.”

Eva spent the month of February at our residency where she painted and played in the snow, went on a beach hunt for quartz and took in the mountain views from her living room.

“In my practice, I work with many mediums, performance and sculpture but currently I have been mainly working with drawing, symbols and the spiritual realms. I am curious about the man and how he perceives his reality and social discourse. I’m interested in historic artefacts, facts and fictional environments, the ghost of the bastard craft lingers in the work, often producing multilayered distorted replicas. Humour is essential to my mediation – communication as we often use humour in revealing hidden or often disclosed matters of the psyche.”

More of Eva´s work: https://evaisleifs.info/

Eva´s interview:

Thank you Eva! <3

Maithili is a painter and sculptor who spent time at the Fish Factory in February, a snowy month that inspired her to delve into what it means to be a woman and to spend time by herself. “As a woman, we experience a lot of emotions and since a kid, I have been watching and experiencing that its always a struggle for a woman especially when you live in a culture like India where a life of woman feels like a circus, where you are trapped in and someone else controls your life. But then I moved to Greece and the United States. I learned that no matter where you go, the experiences will be different but the struggle is going to remain the same.”

Maithili´s interview:

Check her work here:

www.artbymaithili.com

Thank you Maithili!

At the Fish Factory, Kirsten Sophie Hasberg worked on her project with the working title “Jazz meets energy”, a jazz recording and talk that combines spoken tracks with recordings of satirical jazz pieces by Tom Lehrer and Dave Frishberg. The tracks include titles like “Pollution” (Tom Lehrer) and ”Let’s eat home” (Frishberg) and the spoken part is based on my Ph.D. on organizing sustainable transitions that I finished in 2020. The project will be recorded in spring 2022 with the Berlin-based Danish jazz bass player and composer Anne Mette Iversen and her trio Iversen-Müller-Smith.

In addition to working on the Jazz meets Energy project, she finalized a research article on blockchain technology in the energy sector, submitted for a special issue on “Ignorance” in the journal “ephemera”. She also kept track of my “day job” as a sustainability advisor to Danish schools and secured funding for projects running in 2022/23. The solitude of the East fjord mountains certainly helped her through the process with all three projects.

Kirsten´s work on soundcloud.

Apart from that, she was enjoying the wonderful piano in the Silo Studio, and just for fun, she recorded a few classical pieces over video footage, like news about the COP26 climate conference, a Danish political debate over green policies, and, as a thank you to a wonderful fish truck driver who she met in Stöðvarfjörður, over footage from my trip with the fish truck all the way to Reykjavik.

Check out her interview:

Thank you Kirsten :)

Laura Thipphawong is a Canadian artist, writer, and historian, and has exhibited art and presented her research throughout several galleries and international academic forums. Her studio practice is representative of her research on the complex symbolism of the psyche in response to various social factors, with focus on sexuality, horror, folklore, and natural science.

Laura used her time at the Fish Factory to source inspiration from the regional environment and to reinvigorate her work habit of undergoing day-long uninterrupted drawing and painting sessions. While in the studio, Laura organized and drafted hundreds of source images for use in her series of paintings involving the natural world as an allegory for emotional human experience, and of the connectedness between time, space, and the psyche. She created several studies from which to evolve into oil paintings back at her Toronto studio, and as well created a small series of illustrations informed by the whimsical and turbulent Icelandic culture and landscape.

During her time in Iceland Laura met many wonderful people, fulfilled a life-long dream (hiking a volcano), and experienced some deeply charged moments of personal connection both inside the studio and in the outside world.

Thank you, Laura! :)

Blaze Christopher is a multidisciplinary artist and poet based in London, UK. Her work revolves around challenging the confines of empathy and how play can be utilised to understand one another more. She believes radical empathy can change the way the art world communicates with itself and the world outside of it.

During her stay at the fish factory Blaze worked on creating an hour-long audio segment of poetry that was aired on Montez Press Radio called ‘Cartoonish Feelings’. Her poetry discussed vulnerability, religiosity, death, love, and philosophy through the lens of personal experience. Alongside working on writing, Blaze explored dying fabric with natural elements and making soft sculpture and wearable pieces from the fabric with the integration of ceramic elements. Between working through all these mediums, Blaze’s stay culminated in a playful body of work that neatly binds, painting, sculpture, and ceramics into one fluid body. She will continue to develop this body of work back in London.

Check out her Radio show:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ekS542v97kGOpcZBCgt59fsk5ScUXuHD/view

Thank you, Blaze! :)

Tetsuya Hori is a composer for contemporary music. During his stay in Stöðvarfjörður he has composed an orchestral piece for a symphonic orchestra.

On his work: “I always think the composition is actually not the task of creating sounds, but the task of listening to sounds from everywhere. And these sounds are in the vast landscape of Iceland, this fish factory, or every little event in my daily life for example. By the way, it is not necessary to listen to the sounds from the ears, but the information obtained from the eyes is also converted into sounds and listenable. Then I interpret them through the filters inside me and write down the notes on the paper in the end. Composition is like drawing a picture on canvas. At first, I need to decide the size of the canvas, then paint the base color on the whole, then draw by the bird’s-eye view and by watching details. So, I repeat these steps toward the final double bar, the end of the music. I am very thankful to really nice people and environments of the fish factory!”

You can check more on his work here: www.tetsuyahori.com

Thank you Tet!

Rebecca Deegan is a figurative artist from Ireland, creating dark, surreal, and atmospheric oil paintings. Before starting her residency, Rebecca researched into Icelandic folklore, and was drawn to the story of Útburður, which inspired the project she worked on at the Fish Factory. Long ago when a woman gave birth to an unwanted baby, she would wrap the child in a cloth and leave it on a lava field. The child would freeze overnight, and come back in the form of Útburður – a type of ghost with the skull of the baby, and the body of a bird, with plumage the same colour as the cloth it was wrapped in.

Check out the interview:

Thank you, Rebecca! :)

Jo is a visual artist based in Suffolk, UK, she primarily works within the public realm on large scale commissions for external and internal sites. Jo has undertaken various major projects in the UK, as well as in France, India and Ireland. Alongside her public work she also makes experimental drawings and materials-based works which continue to inform and inspire her commissions. She has lectured on foundation and degree level courses and is an arts educator facilitating workshops for galleries and community art projects.

Jo came to the Fish Factory to spend time in nature and to be passive, to be completely open to what may come out, looking for the right images in the surroundings and not restricting that process with words. Taking time out from her professional practise and the demands of working on large scale commissions she responded to the environment, allowing things to flow, mistakes to happen and shifts to occur. The quiet, cold and dark of this special place enhancing this period of focus.

Walking daily in the hills she made drawings as a way to absorb the landscape focusing on the details of rocks, ice and lichen. These images fed into further work back in the studio where she made some small ceramic sculptures as well as larger drawings and collages. Jo will develop the work from her time at the fish factory into a new series of small sculptures back in her UK studio.

More work can be seen at www.jochapmanart.co.uk

Check out the interview:

Thank you, Jo!

Based in the UK, Joe Hemming is an artist working in a variety of media including printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture.

“I came to the residency with an open plan and to let my experiences and surroundings influence my work. I spent time walking in the hills and became interested in the idea of deep time geology and felt inspired by the large stones and rock piles in the area. I became interested in how these inanimate objects almost take on a living presence and bare witness to chance encounters in the ancient landscape. 

I spent time in the studio drawing with pastels, allowing myself to loosen up and create abstract landscapes and drawings of sculptural forms inhabiting the landscape. I also used the wood workshop to create wooden sculptures, taking an experimental approach to turning wood on the lathe. 

I had such an enjoyable time at the Fish Factory and that was down to shared experiences with lovely people and the warmth and creative freedom of the place.”

Thank you, Joe!