When I first heard about this new society of young artists renting a warehouse by the harbour, it was from my flatmate’s friend, who was drunk out of his mind. I didn’t put much stock in what he was saying, but a couple of weeks later we got invited to their opening party. Everyone, including Grapevine, were very drunk that night, so nothing really came out of it but I remember the house was really cool. A huge warehouse with long corridors which with candles were placed to lead the way. They have access to the roof which overlooks the whole downtown area, the harbour and Mount Esja. “Perfect for concerts” said Hinni, the founder of the group, when he showed it to me.
What they were on about I couldn’t be sure of and I think that they weren’t either at first (given they state they were in) so I decided to talk to them again later. So on a sunny Sunday afternoon I managed to find them again, meet with them and pump them for some information. I arrived at their facility this time sober and more aware of my surroundings and saw that they had been efficient in covering the walls with their art but I was quite shocked to find out that smoking was banned in the house so we had to go on the roof to talk.
Free thinkers is a group of about twenty artists who want to create a facility for other artists.
The house comes with twenty keys which people can rent for a fee of 3000 krónur per month. In there they can do all the art they are into, anything between photography to music. At least that is there main agenda. All the artists are working individually but they plan to release some artwork quite regularly starting with a CD which documents their contribution to the Culture Night. This CD will be free of charge and attainable in 12 Tónar on Skólavörðustígur.
“It’s a jam session CD” said Hinni when asked about the project. During Culture Night, starting around 20:00, there are going to be some musicians here playing what comes to mind preferably non stop. The idea is to have an open mike (or an amplifier) for visitors in their facility. The result will be recorded and burnt on a CD for everyone to have.
Every now and then a society like that surfaces in our community (every community actually). They all have big plans but not all of them manage to go on after one project. The strength of the Free Thinkers would be their number. The fact that there are twenty active members (the monthly fee helps keeping them active) see to it that there´s is always someone there so everybody can use their house for creativity of some sort. That way they can always stay fresh since the gaps of fall outs can constantly be refilled. What they have is quite impressive now and I hope that they will come through… We’ll see what happens.
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