A ROOM IN ICELAND

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

A ROOM IN ICELAND a non-landscape book I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

On the move: A life. Oliver Sacks My trip to Iceland starts in 1988, even though I didn’t know it at that time. I went to the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and there I met Arna and Ingileif. We lived together in a house in Mariabastion. Every morning, we exercised, had breakfast and dreamt all the time.

I was going to Arna and her sons’ home (she has two sons and a cat, the same as me). I met also Pálína in Akureyri. But some of the friends passed away during all those years: Aegide (my brilliant teacher) in 1996, Ingileif in 2010 and Thorvaldur in 2013.

There were other Icelanders around: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… that used to join us at our place.

The Icelandic group was my family then. They were singing together Icelandic songs and I was the only audience during their rehearsals. They told me many stories about their country: Icelandic horses and sheep, Thorrablód, saga stories, long winters without sun...

My first idea was to make a book about landscape, but as a big surprise, I couldn’t take many pictures of a place I knew mostly from words and charged with strong feelings. It was a landscape known by stories and feelings more than pictures and when this landscape was placed in front of my camera, I was not able to easily represent it.

Besides that, some of the people that had been asking me to go to Iceland, were not there anymore.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif and Charles had a music band, The Qualities that used to sing Abba songs.

That’s why I call Ingileif, the “Dancing Queen”.

I knew I would go to Iceland at any time in my life. It was a very known land for me from my colleagues’ storytelling: an accounted land, one that I imagined in my head, like a promised land.

And that trip finally came in 2015. That summer I decided to travel to Iceland by impulse and a bit unconsciously. I could see many places I was told about many years ago. I could feel how it is being in this land, experiencing the weather, the infinite light brightness in summer, the power of the springs and volcanoes.

The Akureyri Botanical Garden was close by Arna’s place and I did lots of pictures of plants and beautiful flowers like the big islandic poppies. Arna was now my connection to people and landscape, my memory and my storyteller.

Once I was at home again, I started to look into a wooden box where I had letters, postcards and some pictures from Jan van Eyck’ers. These became the clues in my story. As a surprise, I found in every letter from Jan van Eyck’ers, my future written down. It was my destiny in there. When I received the letters in the 90’s, I was not aware of the connections between people and landscape.

I must clarify that my Project in the Academie was about doing portraits of my colleagues dressed as Hollywood stars, portrayed for posterity with my Hasselblad camera.

Ingileif wrote me a postcard from Maastricht in 1988 telling she had been in Berlin with some Jan van Eyck people and then, I found a picture with Thorvaldur and Ingileif taken by Arna on that trip. In another postcard, she tells me she went to Venice: …saw the Biennale and Henk Visch’s catalog with your photo in it and your name.

Luckily, I have the catalog. Inside, I found also Henk Visch’s letter asking me to send a bill to the Biennale organization and the bill I made for them.

In another postcard Ingileif tells a sad story: One month ago at six o’clock in the morning someone broke into our house (in Mariabastion) and came upstairs with a mask over his face and a knife from our kitchen in his hand. Arna was awake; she woke up when he broke the back door. She went downstairs but didn’t see anyone. Probably he was then hiding in the garden. She didn’t even notice that the door was open and she went to bed again but didn’t fall sleep. Half an hour later she heard something in the stairs and she asked, who is it? Then the man came rushing into her bedroom with the knife. Arna is strong and she jumped out of bed and managed to grab his hands and push him out of the bedroom. Then she called me and I saw them standing in front of my room when I woke up. I took my blanket with me, I managed to put it over the guy so he couldn’t use the knife and me and Arna screamed like animals at him. Finally he gave up and ran away out of the house. We called the police immediately, but they didn’t catch him.

In her letters she always talks about weather conditions, health and paintings. She had a daughter in 1994, Asdís and I have the picture she sent me of both of them.

I found Aegide’s postcard from 1989. He was a Dutch teacher from the Jan van Eyck. He is telling me in that postcard: Dear Isabel, perhaps a surprise, I visit Iceland. You must go also, because it is unbelievable. He even draws the route of his travel in Iceland.

In another postcard from 1990, Aegide tells me: I wrote you about a book. It is finished. The meaning was to make one, but I found time to make also a very small book over Iceland. You shall see them. In 1993 he send me the invitation for the presentation of the book “STA”, panorama heliogravures.

After that, I didn’t get any other postcard, no letters, nothing. I searched for Aegide for many years on the internet and facebook and I didn’t get any news. I just found out about his death in 1996 at the age of 35 and his Icelandic landscape book, some months before I decided to go to Iceland.

The idea of doing an Icelandic Landscape Book was not mine. Aegide already had done it and told me in 1993. So, I decided to include it in my Icelandic no-landscape book. I haven’t seen the book, but my search for it finished when Arna told me she has the book and she will send it to me.

It is amazing how our future is written down. We can’t escape from our destiny, but we have to keep aware of the signs.

Betsy is from Pittsburgh and she decided after finishing her studies in the Jan van Eyck to move to Amsterdam. She had a boyfriend, Maarten from Den Bosch and they were supposed to marry in Iceland, because it was half way for the families to join the wedding. Thorvaldur and Ibby were organizing the event, but in the end the marriage didn’t take place. Betsy has an extraordinary book about the Limburg borders, which is inclu-

ded in this work and she has made some photo series about Iceland with a pinhole camera.

Some days ago I received a message on facebook from Betsy where she was telling me: after not-aword in 15 years, I heard from Maarten since returning from Barcelona. Life works in mysterious ways!

Thorvaldur was a painter, theater director and the best writer of Icelandic children’s literature. I realized his death only when I went to Iceland. Some years ago I found two books from him translated to Spanish: Puedes llamarme Bubu and Traigo un mensaje para Bubu. The maps drawn by Gudjón Ketilsson of an imagined land where Bubu lives, gave me the chance to introduce my pictures from Iceland as illustrating this land.

Wim came to Barcelona and he told me Arna was having a performance in Amsterdam at Boekie Woekie. I decided to go there without telling it to anybody and something extraordinary happened there: joining the performance was Betsy, Nini, Wim, Suchan, Ines and of course, Arna. A beautiful meeting of old friends.

After Arna’s performance at Boekie Woekie, the past has come to the present and the relationships start again. Betsy came to Barcelona and she revealed to me so many stories from the absent people. She also has a big relationship to Iceland and connected me again to Maastricht and the life in Maastricht.

I have been waiting Aegide’s book for a long time, which was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle.

Arna sends it to me from Akureyri, but when I received the package it was another book inside: 5H5 How to catch a sheep in Iceland, not STA the one that I was looking for, figuring landscapes from Iceland.

So, my search will continue until I find it.

Isabel Codina

UNA HABITACIÓ A ISLÀNDIA llibre de no-paisatge

El meu viatge a Islàndia va començar l’any 1988, quan vaig anar a estudiar a la Jan van Eyck Academie de Maastricht. Allà vaig conèixer Arna i Ingileif. Vivíem juntes en una casa al carrer Mariabastion i cada matí fèiem exercici, esmorzàvem i somiàvem constantment.

Em vaig estar a casa d’Arna i els seus fills (com jo, te dos fills i un gat). Vaig veure també Pálína a Akureyri. Però alguns amics de l’escola havien mort al llarg d’aquests anys: Aegide l’any 1996, Ingilief l’any 2010 i Thorvaldur l’any 2013. També Ibby havia mort temps enrere.

Hi havia altres islandesos: Thorvaldur, Pálína, Ibby… que solien venir a la casa. Cantaven junts cançons islandeses i jo era l’únic públic que tenien mentre assajaven. M’explicaven històries sobre el seu país: els cavalls i les ovelles, el Thorrablód, les sagues, els llargs hiverns sense sol… Eren com la meva família.

La meva idea era fer un llibre de paisatge islandès, però sorprenentment, no vaig fer massa fotografies d’aquells llocs que coneixia sobretot pels relats i carregats d’intensos sentiments. Era un paisatge conegut per històries i relats més que per imatges i quan aquell paisatge es mostrava davant la meva càmera, em resultava difícil d’interpretar. I per sobre de tot, alguns dels amics a través dels quals el vaig conèixer, ja no hi eren.

Thorvaldur, Arna, Ingileif i Charles tenien una banda de música, The Qualities i solien cantar cançons del grup Abba. Per això anomeno Ingileif, Dancing Queen.

Sabia que en algun moment de la meva vida aniria a Islàndia. Per mi era un país molt conegut a través de les històries que escoltava dels meus companys, una terra explicada, imaginada en el meu cap, com una terra promesa.

I aquest viatge va arribar finalment l’any 2015.

Aquell estiu impulsivament vaig decidir anar a Islàndia i visitar aquells indrets que m’havien estat explicats temps enrere. Vaig poder experimentar la meteorologia sempre canviant del lloc, la llum infinita i brillant de l’estiu, el poder de les cascades i els volcans.

El jardí botànic d’Akureyri estava molt a prop de la casa d’Arna i em vaig dedicar a fer fotografies de plantes i flors, especialment de l’Amapola d’Islandia (Papaver nudicaule) una planta de grans dimensions. Arna era la meva connexió entre la gent i el paisatge, la meva memòria.

En tornar del viatge, vaig començar a buscar en una caixa de fusta i vaig trobar cartes, postals i fotografies que no recordava i que m’havien enviat els Jan van Eyck’ers els anys següents a la meva estada a l’escola.

Aquestes van ser les pistes per reconstruir la meva història. Les cartes que anava llegint, m’anaven recordant el meu passat i alhora em descobrien el futur. La història s’anava lligant poc a poc i tot

adquiria sentit: el viatge, la retrobada amb la gent, el llibre. Vaig trobar a les cartes i postals el meu futur escrit. Quan les cartes em van arribar als anys 90, no era conscient de les connexions que s’establien entre la gent i el paisatge, però amb el pas dels anys aquesta connexió era evident.

He d’explicar que el projecte que vaig realitzar com a estudiant a la Jan van Eyck consistia en fotografiar els meus companys caracteritzats com artistes de Hollywood, retratats per la posteritat amb la Hasselblad. Encara conservo els retrats i tots els negatius d’aquest projecte.

L‘any 1988 Ingileif m’escriu una postal des de Maastricht, explicant-me que ha estat a Berlin amb la gent de l’escola. I trobo una imatge d’Ingileif i Thorvaldur presa per Arna a Berlin. En una altra postal em diu que ha anat a Venècia: …vaig anar a la Biennal i vaig veure el catàleg d’Henk Visch amb la fotografia que li vas fer.” Henk Visch m’havia demanat que li fes un retrat pel catàleg de l’exposició que va fer l’any 1988 a la Biennal.

Dins el catàleg hi trobo la carta d’Henk Visch dient que enviï una factura pel retrat i trobo també la factura que els vaig enviar.

En una altra postal, Ingileif relata una història dramàtica que van viure a Mariabastion: Un mes enrere, a les 6 del matí va entrar algú a la casa i va pujar les escales amb una màscara a la cara i un ganivet. Arna estava desperta, perquè havia sentit soroll. Va baixar les escales però no va veure ningú i va tornar al llit. Mitja hora més tard

va sentir soroll a les escales i va preguntar qui hi havia. Llavors l’home va entrar corrents a la seva habitació amb un ganivet. Arna és forta i va aconseguir fer-lo fora de l’habitació. Els vaig veure davant la meva habitació quan em vaig despertar.

Vaig agafar una manta i la vaig posar per sobre de l’home perquè no pogués utilitzar el ganivet i vam cridar com animals cap a ell. Finalment va marxar corrents cap el carrer. Vam cridar la policia però no el van agafar.

En les seves cartes Ingileif sempre parla del temps, de la salut i de la pintura. Va tenir una filla l’any 1994, Asdís i tinc la foto que em va enviar on surten les dues.

Aegide, holandès i professor a la Jan van Eyck envia una postal l’any 1989 on diu: Estimada Isabel, potser et sorprendrà, he anat a Islàndia. Tu també has d’anar, perquè és increïble. En llegir-la després de tants anys prenc consciència de la seva importància en el present i descobreixo que inclús em dibuixa la ruta que va seguir.

En una altra postal de 1990, Aegide em diu: Et vaig parlar d’un llibre. Està acabat. La idea era ferne un però vaig tenir temps per fer també un petit llibre sobre Islàndia. Has de veure’ls. L’any 1993 m’envia una invitació per a la presentació del seu llibre STA, panorama heliogravures amb fotografies d’Islàndia.

Aquesta va ser la darrera postal que vaig rebre d’Aegide.

Vaig buscar-lo durant molts anys a internet i a facebook però no aconseguia trobar-lo. Pocs mesos abans de decidir fer el viatge a Islàndia vaig descobrir que havia mort l’any 1996 a l’edat de 35 anys.

En retrobar les postals d’Aegide vaig adonar-me que la idea de fer un llibre de paisatges d’Islàndia no era meva. Ell ja ho havia fet, i m’ho havia dit el 1993. Per això vaig decidir incloure el seu llibre en el meu llibre de no-paisatge islandès. No havia vist el llibre i no sabia on trobar-lo, però Arna tenia una còpia i me’l va enviar. És increïble descobrir que el nostre futur ja està escrit en el passat. No podem defugir el destí, però hem d’estar atents als signes que anem rebent.

Betsy va néixer a Pittsburgh i després d’acabar els estudis a la Jan van Eyck es va instal·lar a Amsterdam on encara viu. Quan estudiàvem tenia una parella, Maarten de Den Bosch. Estaven a punt de casar-se a Islàndia, perquè quedava a mig camí entre les dues families. Ingileif i Ibby estaven organitzant els preparatius per l’esdeveniment, però Betsy va decidir no casar-se i dedicar-se a la seva carrera artística. Fa uns dies m’envia un missatge de facebook on em diu que després de 15 anys ha rebut notícies de Maarten. La vida funciona misteriosament.

Va fer un projecte sobre les fronteres de Limburg, que va acabar sent un llibre Grens, Borders.

També va fer dues sèries de fotografia amb càmera estenopeica sobre Islàndia.

Thorvaldur va ser un creador multidisciplinari: pintor, director de teatre i el millor escriptor de literatura islandesa per a nens. Vaig trobar dos llibres seus traduïts al castellà: Puedes llamarme Bubu i Traigoun mensaje para Bubu. Els mapes dibuixats per Gudjón Ketilsson d’una terra imaginària on viu Bubu, em van donar la oportunitat d’introduir les meves fotografies fetes a Islàndia, com il·lustrant aquesta terra.

El meu viatge a Islàndia va suposar un retrobament amb el passat, tant amb la gent que havia compartit amb mi la seva època d’estudiant, com amb els documents que havia guardat durant aquests anys. Els esdeveniments han anat enllaçant-se de manera natural.

Arna feia una performance a Amsterdam, a la tenda de llibres d’artista Boekie Woekie. Vaig decidir anar sense dir-ho a ningú i va passar una cosa sorprenent: vaig trobar Betsy, Nini, Wim, Suchan i per suposat Arna.

La performance va servir per reunir als vells amics que havíem estudiat junts feia tan de temps. I la relació va començar de nou. Betsy va venir a Barcelona i em va explicar moltes històries sobre la gent que ja no hi era, que m’han servit per reconstruir un passat que ara es revela com el meu present.

He estat esperant el llibre d’Aegide amb impaciència i quan l’he rebut no era el llibre que esperava, STA amb paisatges d’Islàndia. El llibre que contenia el paquet que em va enviar Arna és 5H5 How to catch a sheep in Iceland, que ha acabat sent el protagonista del meu relat.

Isabel Codina

Aegishjalmur

A ROOM IN ICELAND Isabel Codina

This book would not be possible without the support of my friends Arna Valsdottir, Betsy Green, Pálína Gudmundsdóttir and Wim Salki.

It is a tribute to them and to Aegide Rings, Ingileif Thorlacius and Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson.

Photographs, text & design: Isabel Codina Text correction: Betsy Green Design & edition support: Ignasi López [lê_booqs] Book inside: Aegide Rings Self-published by Isabel Codina. Barcelona, 2016

Yes sir I can Boekie – from my internal songbook Video/song installation. Arna Valsdottir, Boekie Woekie, Amsterdam, 24 october 2015 In my mind the Icelandic songs are in many voices and actually I wish I could sing in harmony with myself so that at least two voices would come out when I open my mouth.

Arna Valsdottir

Arna

3 July 1963

Ingileif, Arna and myself cleaning the backyard of the house and burning bad thoughts and memories. We were living together in Mariabastion and studying at Jan van Eyck Akademie.

Our lifes were full of dreams and hopes. This was 1988.

Ingileif Dancing Queen

5 August 1961 - 30 March 2010

Henk

18 September 1950

Aegide

21 July 1961 - 31 May 1996

In September 2012 there was a big snow storm in Iceland. In a single night fell so much snow, it reached three meters high, leaving buried 13.000 sheep. Arna had to go riding in the middle of a big storm to help find sheep that had disappeared. The most horrible vision of her life was to find thousands of sheep half dead in the snow.

Betsy

27 setembre 1962

They were supposed to marry in Iceland. Betsy was from Pittsburgh and he was from Den Bosch. Reykjavic was the central point for family and friends to go to the marriage. But Betsy decided to leave him.

Betsy Green, 1998

Betsy Green, Iceland color series. 1988

Betsy Green, Iceland, 1996

Betsy got her camera from a man who didn’t know it was a working photo camera. The man told her: “This camera will change your life, so you give me something in return that will change my life: a trip to South America”

Thorvaldur

7 November 1960 - 23 February 2013

Legend says that when Thorgeir returned home from the parliament, he took all his statues of the old heathen gods from their temple, carried them to a nearby river and threw them into a mighty waterfall. Since then this fall has always been Godafoss.

In one 1998 survey, 54,4 per cent of Icelanders do not deny the existence of elves and 8 per cent claim their existence. Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir said: “If this was just one crazy lady talking about invisible friends, it’s really easy to laugh about that. But to have people through hundreds of years talking about the same thing, it’s beyond one or two crazy ladies. It is part of the nation.”

Arna told me a story about a big rock where elves lived, “or maybe it was hidden people”.

The hidden people are similar size and look as we are. I don’t really remember which it was but the community was building a new road close to where a friend of my father lived.

When the workers tried to use the machines on the rock, the machines always broke so they couldn’t destroy it. The mother of my father’s friend then spoke to the elves or hidden people and invited them to come and live in their house while they would find a new rock to lives in.

And the story says that elves accepted this and moved in and suddenly the machines worked and they could break down the rock.”

Saint Servatiusm, Maastricht

Saint Servatiusm, Maastricht HallgrĂ­mskirkja, Reykjavic

HallgrĂ­mskirkja, Reykjavic Hraundrangi, north Iceland

Hraundrangi, north Iceland