Transcript for Episode 183 – Site-Specific Installation Artist, Elín Hansdóttir (Iceland)

Recorded May 10, 2021
Published June 22, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/site-specific-installation-artist-elin-hansdottir-iceland/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:10
Could you please pronounce your name correctly? For me? My name is alien hunched aatish. And you are what I would just find that? Well, I would define as multimedia artists or multidisciplinary artists. How do you define yourself?

Elín Hansdóttir 0:24
Just an artist with a special interest in installations, I guess. Yeah, like architectural spaces that move us. We’re kind of like the Yeah, I’m really interested in the, the essence of the space, you know,

Matthew Dols 0:41
okay. It’s fair, I liked that architectural installation artist, maybe?

Elín Hansdóttir 0:46
Maybe. Alright,

Matthew Dols 0:48
the first thing I would love to know about people is sort of how did they get created? So where are your parents creative? Did you have some interesting teachers and schooling? Like, what brought you down the path of being creative in the first place?

Elín Hansdóttir 1:00
Well, I think probably the fact that my parents, Well, firstly, they were quite young, when they had me and my father had just finished his studies when I was born. And he’s a violin maker, you know, I grew up in a workshop. And he kind of very early on, you know, I was seven when he taught me how to use the bandsaw. And so I kind of grew up in an environment where I was taught not to fear big machines, and respect them and learn how to use them so that I wouldn’t, you know, hurt myself. So I think, yeah, I grew up in a makers home. And then my mother has kind of a background in creative writing. So yeah, I guess, I wonder actually, how it happens that I, I want to study art. But I guess when I was about 15, the first commercial gallery I ate in Reykjavik opened in 1995, in my street, so I started working there as a teenager, on weekends. And that’s how I kind of, you know, got into the art world, I went through all the magazines that they had subscribed to, and I follow the exhibitions. And I just realized that it was an area that brought together a lot of my interests. So somehow, just naturally, I applied for the auto Academy. And that’s how it happens.

Matthew Dols 2:28
But one thing I noticed about your work is you do against sort of these architectural installations. I’m from America, and I’m also a photographer. So I’m always fascinated with how these kinds of sorts of installations and all those kind of projects get made IE funded,

Elín Hansdóttir 2:47
how they get funded. Ah, well, yeah, sometimes I feel like I spent like, 90% of my time trying to fund these projects. And it’s true, you know, it’s very hard. I mean, my first big large scale installation, which I built in 2005, there’s just a book that came out about it. It’s called long place, and it’s just been published by this pants in Berlin. But it was 150 meter long tunnel light construction that we built through an old building in small fishing village in the north of Iceland. And it was part of the Reykjavik Arts Festival at the time curated by Jessica Morgan. And she decided to spread instead of making a you know, big group show in the city in Reykjavik, she decided to spread the artists around the island and, and she invited me to work in a tiny fishing village. And, of course, the arts festival had a budget, but it was about 1/4 of what I needed for this structure was, you know, 10,000 screws and five tons of chipboard and, you know, I don’t know how many litres of paint and spackle and, and I had recently sold my apartment, and I use whatever I earned from that, to buy all this material to do it. And I do not regret it. And of course, I have crazy parents who tell me, you know, they’re always very supportive. So they just, you know, whatever nonsense I tell them, I want to do I they just say go go for. So that’s of course that helps.

Matthew Dols 4:28
That’s very luxurious. Yeah, to have that support of a family.

Elín Hansdóttir 4:32
Yes, I have to say that having that support. You know, it’s not financial support, but it’s kind of emotional support. That really is the biggest drive because I have a lot of my friends and colleagues, they don’t have this support. And it does stop people. I think it is a load to carry. You know,

Matthew Dols 4:52
I do know, yes, it’s a it’s a burden that a lot of people have to deal with as far as wanting to have a career. In the arts and not having that emotional support is very isolating.

Elín Hansdóttir 5:06
Yes, exactly. But, of course, if you think about these kinds of projects from the monetary side, or that kind of financial side, they’re complete nonsense. You should not come into this. But on another level, if the work is good enough, you know, it’s really worth it. Because, yeah, I mean, I’m very interested in creating spaces that we usually do not come across, you know, dreamlike spaces or spaces that are almost, you know, similar to the ones that we imagine, you know, in our head, in dreams or daydreams. So I think, and of course, those spaces are very often huge. So it is a challenge, it is really a challenge to make these things, to build them and create them.

Matthew Dols 5:59
Well, you mentioned that you spend like 90% of your time, more or less being a fundraiser, what what kind of fundraising kind of things do you do, like grant proposals, right, like rfqs? Or RFPs? Like, you know, what are some of the things that you have to do in this amount of time to just hope and pray that somebody will be willing to fund your projects?

Elín Hansdóttir 6:22
Yeah, I mean, I think I’m, I’m lucky to live in Iceland, because although, you know, the support system could always do with more money, there is a support system, you can apply for funding for these kinds of projects, but usually they don’t, they might cover, you know, maybe a third of the cost, or even what a fourth, you know, and then you have to either finance them on your own or, or get the companies that provide materials to kind of sponsor you, or there’s always a way, but of course, you know, in terms of salary, the artists is not getting paid for, you know, it’s like, I always have to kind of give my work away, whilst building these huge structures, otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible.

Matthew Dols 7:07
Well, but I noticed when I was looking through your website, you have your large scale installation works that you do. But you also do prints or sort of images as documentation that seemed to be things that could be sold to be able to raise some funds, sort of like the Christo model of like selling prints in order to fund your projects kind of thing.

Elín Hansdóttir 7:27
Well, I do photographic projects, as well. So these are, as you say, I mean, these help to finance the larger works. But I haven’t been selling documentation, my pieces, for example, the piece that I did in Morocco, a lot of my works only exist in the form of documentation. So I’ve been trying to find ways to kind of take them together and get them out into the world, these photographs. And I think this book that I mentioned earlier, is a good way to kind of draw together the the essentials of of a piece and the photographs and texts and images from the construction site and the whole process and experience of people. So yeah, that maybe that’s the future of some of my words, is just being published in the book format.

Matthew Dols 8:15
I’m very envious of the fact that you have a book by this one of my life goals to get a book, but I’m a photographer, we all love making books. But so how did you get a book made?

Elín Hansdóttir 8:26
Well, that’s I mean, this project, as I said, was made in 2005, which is already 15 years ago, or 16 years ago, even. So three years after the project was over, I started on the book, I started working on the book, but I couldn’t finance it, I couldn’t manage to finance the printing. So I had an almost finished book, which didn’t get printed. So then last year, I realized it was the 15th anniversary of the project. And I applied for a grant to print the book and I got it. So it’s also nice to realize that there’s so many projects that you work on, that might not happen straight away, but it’s never lost work, you know, you just have to keep it up. So 15 years later, the book is coming out even though it was almost ready like 10 years ago,

Matthew Dols 9:19
what like how long did you some of your projects take so like from initial idea, till manifestation,

Elín Hansdóttir 9:26
I think it’s a pretty luxurious to get a year’s advance or being invited to create a project for a space, but sometimes it’s only six months, you know, and then takes me three months or two months to decide what to do and then three more months to finance the project. And then if I don’t manage to finance it, I might have to start from scratch and come up with another ideas. So very often these projects are kind of decided very last minute. I kind of gave myself a hard time for that for a long time, but And I realized that, you know, the opening when I finished building or setting something up, that’s just the beginning of this piece. That’s when it starts. I don’t like to see these pieces as the final outcome of an idea that I got, it’s more of the fact that, you know, I get an idea. I put it out there. And then I see what happens. And sometimes it’s, it fails. Sometimes it just doesn’t work as I had imagined. And sometimes it does. And that’s the kind of magic. That’s the beauty of it. But of course, it’s an experiment. experimentation is a quest, and it can never be fruitful, if it’s like goal orientated. So it’s a risk. But a good risk. Good kind of risk.

Matthew Dols 10:41
Certainly, oh, I’m all for you understand, I’m also a practicing artist, I get it. But the, when it comes to the your work, how many? Like how many failures? Do you have to have to the percentage of successes? I’m thinking just in the studio, kind of, you know, like me, like, if I sat down and did my own numbers, I probably would say, like, I’m successful 40% of the time, the other 60, I either didn’t work enough, I made some mistakes, or I overworked?

Elín Hansdóttir 11:12
It’s a difficult question. Because I mean, what is failure anyway? What does it mean? And what are we referring to?

Matthew Dols 11:21
Okay, okay, I’ll give you my definition of failure, my definition of failure is something that I’m not willing to put into the public with my name attached to it. Okay, something that I believe would damage my reputation in some way. That’s, that’s a failure.

Elín Hansdóttir 11:39
I think I’m gifted with something that, you know, does not stop me in that sense. I just risk it and then feel embarrassed for some time. But I don’t think I would have gone ahead and done a lot of these projects, if I would have thought too much about them. You know, possibly failing,

Matthew Dols 11:57
I admire you for that. That’s great. I’m way too self conscious and anxious to do that, I guess.

Elín Hansdóttir 12:07
Maybe it’s also the fact that, you know, I’ve been working from Iceland, and in Iceland, I mean, the art market, per se, is very young. So there’s a lot of artists here per capita, if you think about it, and everybody has, you know, it might sound like a cliche, but but everybody has, like at least three jobs, and they do different things. And I think it’s due to the fact that it’s a really small country, we need to be multitaskers, we need to know a lot of different things to make this country, you know, work. So I think in a way, it’s it’s really good that the art market is it’s not dominating the art world here. You know, my point is people aren’t as worried about that. If you make a project, which isn’t good enough, it’s gonna be the end of your career, you know, people don’t care about these things.

Matthew Dols 12:56
And again, I’m very envious of you for that ability. Because that’s not the way I was taught in my schooling. But anyways, yeah. Okay, wait, there’s a question. Okay. I’ve spoken to a number of other other Iceland artists or people working in the arts and something that fascinates that I haven’t asked yet. But I thought I’d ask you is, how has been from Iceland been a positive or a negative? Or has it even in any way affected your ability to make art or hat build your career?

Elín Hansdóttir 13:29
I think both. I mean, I think there’s an interest in Icelandic art. In the last years, there has been quite an interest from abroad. But on the other hand, of course, we live on a very isolated island. And it’s sometimes frustrating not to be part of a bigger scene. But you know, I didn’t grow up in Iceland. So I’m not the typical Icelander. I only lived here from the age of 12, onwards until I was 23. And then I moved to Berlin, and I lived there for 10 years. So I grew up in Central Europe in another small weird country called Luxembourg. So not sure if I’m the right person to ask because being Icelandic You know, I’m not quite sure what it means because I grew up with five languages. And you know, at some point in my life, my German was better than my Icelandic and so forth.

Matthew Dols 14:20
Okay, wait, just to be clear. I did not say Iceland nor Liechtenstein was. Luxembourg was weird. You said that I said that. But it is I’m sorry. I, I’ve never been to either. So I just want to be sure that I’m not being accused of saying that but you said that not me.

Elín Hansdóttir 14:39
I said it because it’s true. I’m kidding. It’s very small. And it has own language, which very few people speak, you know, like Iceland, and it’s very different to Iceland. It’s like highly Catholic and very strict and school system is one of the hardest or like strictest in the world. I’ve been told, so yeah, it’s a funny mixture. Right?

Matthew Dols 15:04
Well, I when I think of Iceland, like, especially now that I’m talking to more people from Iceland through the podcast, I’m there is I feel like there is a very large percentage of people that do. I we’re not gonna say like art, but do creative things. I feel like almost everybody probably has some creative thing that they do. It may not be their profession, but they all do something.

Elín Hansdóttir 15:28
Yeah, I think you’re right, I really genuinely think that it comes from, it’s a kind of a survival mode. You know, if you want to survive living in Iceland, I mean, throughout the ages, I’m not talking about now, you know, because we lead quite a nice life. But it’s a harsh country. I mean, the weather and the nature, it’s like harsh circumstances that people had to kind of figure out how to survive. And they did. And it’s absolutely crazy. Because you can’t grow things here properly. You know, there’s almost no animals. It’s like, how do you? How do you survive? So I think people have to just find ways and be creative in that sense, because it was a necessity.

Matthew Dols 16:10
Well, and I would also imagine, there’s a lot of boredom as well. So like, so they had to entertain themselves and be creative and find new ways to do that kind of stuff just to pass time or make things more beautiful or whatever. Maybe? I don’t know, I’m not sure. All right. Well, I’ll ask somebody else that one of your pieces that I’m actually really, really fascinated by is and I’m not going to try and pronounce the first part of it. But the last part is wind harp. Oh, okay. Yes. Interesting. Now that I know that your father’s a violin maker, it makes a lot more sense of why you prefer or want to produce this. So that’s sort of my my starting question. on your website, it’s there. Please pronounce the first part of it,

Elín Hansdóttir 16:57
then touchbar. It’s basically just a word for wind harp in Icelandic.

Matthew Dols 17:01
I’m sorry, no way. It’s spelled L L, I S SAJOU. s.

Elín Hansdóttir 17:08
o list. As you figure it’s like, based on the list as you figure, okay, it’s a French name, or French scientist, he found out a way to visualize a sound wave. So the figure is named after him. Lisa Zhu.

Matthew Dols 17:29
Okay. Got it. That’s how you pronounce it. Great. Thank you. So on your website, you have sketches for this Has this ever been produced?

Elín Hansdóttir 17:40
No, it hasn’t. Because it was actually 10 years ago, when the music hall half by the music and conference hall in Reykjavik was built, there were a number of artists that were asked to create outdoor artworks for the Plaza in front of musical and that was just before the financial collapse. So the budget for this project just disappeared. But hopefully, it will be built in actually in the near future. So yeah, we just need to figure out how to finance it. It’s always the same question. But this it’s interesting that this project got chosen because it’s an Aeolian harp, for wind harp, so the wind plays it. And I worked on it with my father actually, is nice that you mentioned that, because he is, of course, a specialist in vibrating bodies and strings. But the music hall didn’t have a name at the time. So long after this, they named it half bar, which means harp, which is not at all connected to this piece. So it’s a funny coincidence. It’s almost as if it should be there, you know?

Matthew Dols 18:53
Indeed, yes. Okay, so how many of these kinds of projects like the harp do you have that are sort of like sketched and planned and ready, but yet have not been produced,

Elín Hansdóttir 19:03
maybe four or five, and they’re mostly works that I have proposed in competitions or open calls for public works, you know, and stuff like that. So like playing the lottery, very, very unlikely that these pieces will be produced. But as I said, it’s not lost work is like my bank, you know, I can always go there and have a look what I have. And then I just keep proposing them again, and again and again, until the right situation comes up.

Matthew Dols 19:36
So you do proposals for public art projects. I’ve run a public art sculpture project in the United States. And I found the whole system of it all to be just horrible. It’s like for me in the United States. So as I’m sort of interested in the differences in the US, it’s very much sort of art by committee. And so, to me, it ends up being sort of the most mediocre of the work instead of the most interesting or engaging or forward thinking it ends up being something, you know, again, sort of created by committee. And so it’s sort of like, Yeah, kind of productions? Is that’s, that’s the same kind of experiences in Iceland, and where else wherever else you’ve done public projects,

Elín Hansdóttir 20:25
I don’t really know, when you hand in a proposal, you never know what the committee? Like? I don’t know, I really don’t know. I mean, I haven’t proposals internationally. So. But yeah, I it’s just, it’s always nice to kind of put your work out there. And even if you don’t become or get chosen, your project doesn’t get chosen, it doesn’t really matter, because there’s probably three people on the committee that will remember, you know, what you’ve done, and because you normally hand in, you know, a portfolio of what you’ve done. So I think it’s also a way to just like, show the world what you’ve been doing. And, you know, I’ve had people contact me for exhibitions, 10 years after they had been on a committee where they saw my work, you know, and so, you know, it’s just,

Matthew Dols 21:14
I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. So just because you keep saying, you know, so like, I’m just being clear.

Elín Hansdóttir 21:22
Oh, that’s, that’s a very Icelandic thing to do. To say, you know, all the time.

Matthew Dols 21:28
Just being clear. I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. Cuz, and I want to know, again, that’s why I’m asking. But, okay. So you do a lot of proposals for installations, exhibitions, public projects, all this kind of stuff. So how do you feel about the fact that you have to spend so much time energy and effort writing about work versus producing work?

Elín Hansdóttir 21:52
Oh, it’s, it’s the hardest part of the job for me. Because like I said, I grew up with five languages, and I’m not a text oriented person. So for me, writing a text about my work is even more difficult than coming up with a good idea for a piece of art, you know, but I try my best. And then I just often I seek out help to kind of edit the texts. And you know, through the years, you just get better at it. Yeah, I’m kind of a big fan of texts that are very short. And very to the point, I’ve also been on committees. So I know for a fact that, personally, I being on a committee, I wouldn’t want to read, you know, something that is far too long and complicated. I want to know what the project is about very quickly, it has to be very clear, you have to feel that the person kind of has thought it through, well, at least have some kind of a plan.

Matthew Dols 22:52
I understand. I’ve been on committees, and I’ve also had to write them my entire life. So I’m on both sides of it. But that doesn’t alleviate the fact that I really am annoyed by the fact that we, we as artists are expected to not only make really interesting objects, or experiences or whatever. But we’re then also expected to be able to write about them. Like when I was being taught that, that the job of writing about art was more or less sort of art critics, or curators jobs hated the job of making art was the artists job.

Elín Hansdóttir 23:25
Yeah, I mean, I agree. But we just, you know, this frustrated me for many, many years, but then I just realized that it’s okay to ask for help. And you just ask your friends to read your texts, and you got to go back and forth, and you edit it. And in the end, it’s something you learn. But I have to agree it’s very, very difficult, especially if you need to write in, you know, different languages, German, French, I English, Icelandic, there’s a different language, like there’s a different terms about what you’re doing in all these languages. So Oh,

Matthew Dols 24:00
well, that starts me down a path of my other pet peeve, my I have this pet peeve about vernacular that’s used within the arts world, because I had the experience, I was looking for a grant to travel somewhere, which in some places is called a travel grant very obvious. Other places. It’s called a mobility grant. But in other places, it has other names. I really wish that the arts industry as a whole could just come up with like, precise words that everybody in the world agrees to use consistently. Because I find that a lot of words are very inconsistent for, for example, like when I look for grants, when I type in a Google search for a grant thing, if I type in travel grants, but they call them mobility grants, they don’t come up as results. So I need to know again, font responsibility falling back on the artist. I need to know that there are these other words that are used to describe these things in order to even find them. Much less be able to apply for them. And I just really wish some amount of consistency could be agreed upon. Yes. Okay. It’s hard. Well, it’s not only hard like that. But every region also has a different way. They want you to write things in the United States that when I wrote things, they often were like you wanted you were supposed to impress people, you’re supposed to sort of be your cheerleader say, hey, this work is worthy. And this artist is worthy of funding because of these great reasons, these incredible things they’re doing. Whereas in Europe, it’s very much more of a just state, what you’re doing and what you’re trying to achieve and be sort of straightforward, factual, and sort of humble about it. And that’s what’s desired here. So, you know, so as an American, I now totally understand why I did not get any of my European proposals, accepted for many years. But now that I’m in Europe, I totally understand the differences. Yeah, it’s two different worlds. Definitely. I now and that’s not even including Africa and Asia and South America. And I mean, this is just America versus Europe. Yeah, exactly. So sad. But anyways, moving on. You. You also made a film?

Elín Hansdóttir 26:22
I did? You mean, are you referring to the documentary I made recently?

Matthew Dols 26:27
Do you have another film that you made? No, not that I made. I was in a film, which was you were in two films, if you really want to get technical?

Elín Hansdóttir 26:38
No, actually, that’s not true. If I MBD told you. Otherwise,

Matthew Dols 26:43
you are correct. imdb. Tell me that you were at you were an actress in two films. And director of what?

Elín Hansdóttir 26:51
Yes. So actor in one, but the other one is my grandmother. So they got it wrong. It wasn’t me. We just have the same name.

Matthew Dols 27:03
So dive rituals and water. What brought you to I mean, a taking on a whole new medium more or less, like making film, but be a very big shift in even subject matter?

Elín Hansdóttir 27:19
Yeah, I guess. So. In a way, it was a project that kind of became much larger, longer than we ever expected. It started off as you know, simple idea, drinking coffee with friends that had just had children at the same time. And we all took our kids to the skies, who was swimming lessons for infants, we’re talking about children that are two or three months old. And we were all totally fascinated by this guy, who has like incredible charisma. Yeah, gets the kids attention, like very, he’s kind of formed his method over the course of 30 years. And we were just very fascinated. I made the film with another friend artist called unknown trigger doctor, and also a producer called hung up your producer and filmmaker of documentaries. So it was an interesting process, because we I think, maybe because two of us were not filmmakers, or Yeah, usually working in the field of art, but not the filmmaking industry. A lot of people said, You’re crazy to be three directors, but we managed to somehow work through it. And we’re still friends. It’s actually quite magical, to kind of make all these complicated decisions together. And there was never a clash, which is really unbelievable. But we were very fascinated by the fact that the film is about these months that nobody remembers and the fascination also around the fact that the neurological connections that are created or that are happening in these first weeks and months of human beings life are kinda like the fundamentals for the what is to come, you know. So all experiences during this time are very, very important.

Matthew Dols 29:21
Words, just to be clear that that this is it started from the fact that you have a child I assume? Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. So, that’s an interesting topic that I’ve also touched on with a lot of other guests is sort of the issue of parenthood and being an artist, as becoming a parent changed anything in your artistic practice or your Outlook or your production of artworks.

Elín Hansdóttir 29:48
I think it has changed. I mean, I do less procrastinating.

Matthew Dols 29:53
I’ve heard that before actually.

Elín Hansdóttir 29:57
But also the fact that I think Now there’s something way beyond more important in my life, that kind of grounds you, and I’m not as worried of failure, as you know, coming back to that term of, of what that means is that I’m not as I have a life outside of the art world, which is just as important to me as what I do. Yeah. So, of course, it changes a lot. You have less time, but I would say I’m more productive after having a kid. Yeah. And I don’t have a nanny

Matthew Dols 30:34
never even entered my mind that you did have a nanny, but okay. No, exactly. But some people do you know, and I know, I lived in the United Arab Emirates. Everybody has nannies there, right? Yeah, this is gonna sound bad. And I apologize if it comes off wrong. But as a woman in the art was having a child ever sort of a thing that people said anything about, or were concerned about? The reason why I’m asking this is because I’ve had previous guests mentioned that like, some galleries wouldn’t want to work with younger artists, younger female artists, because they say, Oh, well, they might just go have a kid and then never make art again, kind of thing. So as anything like that ever happened in your life?

Elín Hansdóttir 31:19
Nope. And I would never want to work with people that have that attitude towards life. So I wouldn’t really care. I think this is a problem that exists in all fields, but I think maybe less in the Nordic countries. I mean, I feel like in Iceland, children are very welcome. And people are used to taking kids along and like, like, there’s a very relaxed atmosphere towards children, and everybody helps each other out, etc. Of course, the family network is very strong. So I mean, I have not had to deal with people like that in my life. But I remember studying doing my masters in Berlin, and we had a gallerist visit the class to talk about, you know, whatever, the art market or something. And he started talking about women, and the fact that if women had children, their art career was over. And then he referred to women artists that exist. And, you know, take her as example, she had a kid, and she hasn’t done anything since. And it was just so incredibly arrogant and demeaning that I walked out, actually, because, you know, I grew up with artists, like we have a musician who never, there’s this attitude of like, kids just tag along, they follow you in whatever you’re doing in your life, and you don’t stop whatever you’re doing just because you have kids.

Matthew Dols 32:50
Oh, I’m all for it. That’s the way I’m perceiving it. So this whole perception of the way that the arts industry seems to look at female artists, I sort of just find like a little weird. Yeah. And of course antiquated and outdated, at least, if not blatantly sexist, but yeah,

Elín Hansdóttir 33:09
yeah. But as I said, What young woman would want to work with people that have this attitude is just I wouldn’t, at least so. Yeah, there’s plenty of other people that that I would work with.

Matthew Dols 33:24
That’s great. Yeah. I recently did a panel discussion as part of the podcast about the topic of sexism and things like this. were part of the conversation. So it’s just on my mind. Yeah. I have two questions that I am the end the the conversation with. First one might be a little hard. Did you listen to any of the episodes? I did? I did. Okay, then you know, this questions then. Okay, great. So the first question is, could you give me the names of three contemporary artists that you’re looking at contemporary artists, and why you’re looking at them so like a little bit about their work and what in fascinates you about their work?

Elín Hansdóttir 34:05
I’ve been looking at actually a friend of mine, who I’m very inspired by she’s called she’s a German artists working in Berlin. She’s called Cynthia Verner. She makes beautiful, beautiful installations that are very often kind of based on like an illusion. And she has this beautiful talent of kind of finding the limit of two dimensional work versus three dimensional work, so I really recommend checking her out. Who else? Well, the funny thing is that very often I find my inspiration in fields other like outside of the art world, in documentaries or books, or you know, I keep saying you know a lot.

Matthew Dols 34:54
You do? Yeah. Yes, yes,

Elín Hansdóttir 34:57
but let me think of two other ones. I’m, of course a huge fan of Icelandic artists, Fred Fred Finch on.

Matthew Dols 35:05
Yeah, I was about to say, could you please spell that for me? How about you send me a send me these names in an email afterwards? Yeah, that’d be great. I could Yeah. Okay, Mark. Absolutely. What about Rick? What’s really interesting about his work?

Elín Hansdóttir 35:26
There’s some kind of purity to his work. It’s so very simple, pure and fundamental. In a way. I couldn’t describe it differently. very poetic. Yeah. I wouldn’t even want to, like, I wouldn’t even want to describe his work, because it would be somehow an insult. So

Matthew Dols 35:53
you don’t have to describe his work. just describe what interests you and their work?

Elín Hansdóttir 35:58
Yeah, it’s like there’s some kind of interest in I feel like he’s constantly looking for the invisible in, you know, within visible material. So I think that’s what kind of attracts me to his work is like using art or thinking about art as a platform to make invisible things visible. You know, I do. Yeah.

Matthew Dols 36:22
Okay. I get it. I’m on board with it. And the third one, Oh, my God. It could be a director, a film director. It could be a writer, it’s fine. Doesn’t have to be visual artists.

Elín Hansdóttir 36:37
Okay. Well, I’ve been reading Josh Peck for the last years, because I’m a very slow reader. So I take my time, but especially his writings on spaces and species of spaces. Very, very inspiring writer who died far too early in the 80s. I think, around the time I was born, he passed away.

Matthew Dols 37:01
Are you just trying to make me feel old by saying that? No. I’m older than you. You are. I’m older than you. Yeah. Okay. Seven years. I am born in 73. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I already feel old. I don’t need you to make me feel old. That’s fine. Okay, last word is. So I give it to you in two different ways you can choose your way to answer it. So either the best advice you ever received, or just some advice from your own learning experiences of being in the arts industry.

Elín Hansdóttir 37:39
I mean, it’s might sound like a cliche, but I think never give up is a very, is very good advice.

Matthew Dols 37:50
All right, let’s try and stay away from the cliche stuff. I’m looking for something look at here. Look, this is what I’m looking for a story of a life experience that you had that taught you something that you wish you had been taught, without having to deal with whatever you had to do to have that story. Does that make sense? No. Can you explain? Yeah, okay. Let me try and explain. Well, I yeah, I mean, I’d like to teach by, by giving stories and let people figure out themselves sort of the idea behind it. But the the idea is like, something that you did that works really well that nobody taught you, but you had to figure out on your own through, you know, doing it, whether it was a mistake or an error, or whether it was something that you did right kind of thing. So like I’m trying to find ways to be to offer the listeners a learning experience. Does that help?

Elín Hansdóttir 38:53
Yes? Well, I think one of my pieces called path which I built in Berlin, for the like, in 2008. You know, it was one of those pieces, like I said that the idea came very late. And I just went ahead and built it. And I didn’t really have an idea. You know, I didn’t make 3d model of it. And kind of I didn’t know exactly what kind of effect it would have on people. And I only let one person in at a time so you had to kind of ring the bell and the door opened automatically and you went inside alone into the dark. And you followed zigzagging corridor quite a long way you know, about 100 meters if that, you know makes any sense to you the metric system I don’t know how many feet

Matthew Dols 39:41
but 300 feet.

Elín Hansdóttir 39:43
Yes. So what my friends entered the piece and he left his friends outside and he walked into the piece and which was pitch black and piece works in the way that because of there’s vertical and horizontal slits in the structure That lets in the gallery lighting into the piece. So the longer you stay in the piece, the more you’re like your eyes adjust to the darkness. And the more you start seeing. And the structure is actually it’s a zigzagging corridor that ends in a, there’s a dead end, which is like a spike, three meter long spike, which means you have to turn around and walk the same way back, but he came to the door at the end, he had such a big shock seeing his friends outside because he thought that he was, you know, at the other end of the building. So he didn’t realize when he turned around, and I thought that was quite an achievement to create a space that completely disorientated him. You know, we always think that we have everything mapped out somehow, or that somehow we are prepared to what’s going to happen. Yeah, I’m just really interested in this idea that we’re so focused on the fact that, you know, every experience that we have, that it comes to an end, it will come to an end. But yeah, it’s almost as we don’t live that way. We don’t live as though that were the case. You know, we’re continually wanting to arrive in some final position, but, but there really is no arriving. You know, life is just like a flow experience. And then it’s so interesting to turn around and think about, like, what is witnessing these changes, you know, who is it that is experiencing this, you know, this flow. So I don’t know, it’s these kinds of stories that inspiring me, you know, inspire me to carry on and turn to the next piece. And this is how I’ve worked is that one piece has led to the next in a way where I’ve kind of, you can see a lot of like a red thread through many of my pieces. So I don’t know if that makes any sense. It did. It

Matthew Dols 41:55
was a lovely, it was a lovely fable. Perfect, huh. All right. Well, that’s it. So thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you very much for having me.

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com