“Um, can I ask, in lieu of your names, how would you like me to refer to you two?” I ask, tentatively. “The Bunny and The Pig,” The Pig states.
I’m greeting two artists over Zoom, who are donning animal masks (one a pig, the other a bunny). The Bunny and The Pig have been making screenprinted poster works together — anonymously — under the moniker Panamaprent since March of 2022.
“Panamaprent is a reflex and a spotlight and a playground. It’s like an art band,” The Bunny explains. “Our art is in reaction to what is happening around. Not only in Iceland, but in human society,” The Pig adds.
Day-to-day
Panamaprent produces intricate, political works that centre around significant days. Their first work recognised International Women’s Day (March 8), which has become an ongoing series of theirs; 2025 marked their fourth International Women’s Day work. The two have declared March 8 as “the start of our printing year.”
Their International Women’s Day prints are interconnected, often examining the state of feminism in the world compared to years prior. “Our first Eighth of March print, women were speaking. They were talking. They were telling their stories. There were a plethora of podcasts focusing on women’s issues, women’s liberation, and righting injustices. And then two years later, in 2024, all these voices had been silenced. There were no more podcasts speaking about these issues. They had all been silenced,” The Pig says. “Sued and silenced,” The Bunny adds.
Outside of their International Women’s Day series, Panamaprent changes which days to feature by the year. “We go over what international or national days are on the calendar, and how we can connect it to issues that we want to address and have fun with,” The Bunny says, “and then we give ourselves permission to change that around and take different days each year — except for the Eighth of March.” In the past years, they’ve featured works on International Workers’ Day (May 1), Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20), The Day of the Icelandic Tongue (November 16), and more.
“Sometimes we have a day we run with and work around the theme of the day. And sometimes we have an issue we’d like to address, and then we find the day for the issue,” The Pig says. “It’s more of what’s happening around us, what’s happening in the world, and how we feel about things.”
Glow in the dark
Panamaprent’s works are elaborate, rich with details to process and messages to comprehend. “We love symbolism, and we always put a lot of symbols in the artwork. And always on the front is a clue to the hidden background message that you can see in the dark,” The Bunny notes. This is another aspect of their work — there are the intricate images you see on the surface, but when the poster is brought into the dark, another print work glows and reveals itself.
In a piece made for Sjómannadagurinn, or Fishermen’s Day, a boat full of skeletons rows amidst waves made by repetition of the Íslandsbanki logo. “[It] connects to what was happening at the time. There was a scandal with the Íslandsbanki, the one that owned all the fisheries,” The Bunny explains. “It was also the height of the Namibia scandal, with Samherji,” The Pig adds. “And then under that [in the dark] is what it costs society. It’s Borgarspítalinn (The City Hospital, which closed in 1996) with a white flag out the window.”
Sjómannadagurinn
The two are proud of the medium they use for these statements. “Screen printing is art-historically important in political and feminist and activist messaging through art. It has been used by many artists to inform through art,” The Pig says.
Offshore company
“Panamaprent, besides sounding good, is of course connected to the Panama Papers scandals, where some of our most prominent politicians were found to have offshore accounts. We still voted for them again,” says The Bunny. “We were wondering about this business world, this neocapitalistic newspeak, empty, strange words that don’t really seem connected to any humanity.”
“We identify as an offshore company,” adds The Pig. “It’s not supposed to be easy to find out who is behind the offshore companies or the shell company,” continues The Bunny.
Further, Panamaprent’s anonymity creates opportunities for interesting discussion in the greater Icelandic art scene.
In their most recent exhibition, as part of the group exhibition Safakúr at SIND Gallery, the bunny and pig masks rested atop their screenprinted poster’s frame (which was set up like a puppet show stage, where you could draw the curtains shut and reveal the print’s second layer in the dark). I ask about their choices of masks, and The Pig explains, “We are, of course, referencing the art history and Guerrilla Girls. That’s the biggest motivator into deciding to do animals — we talked about doing gorilla masks. But then we decided to do our own and take a little bit of a step into David Lynch’s world and that visual spectrum.”
While in their masks, Panamaprent notices interesting reactions from the Icelandic art scene. “People don’t really know how to take this art because they don’t know who is behind it… it surprised us with another insight into Icelandic art culture, or the political opinions of people —” The Bunny says, with The Pig adding: “Can you like art if you don’t know who’s behind it, and then you don’t know the views behind it?”
I ask if anyone’s tried to figure out who they are yet. The Pig laughs, “Well, I’ve heard some guesses. None of them are us.” The Bunny adds, “We try not to take ourselves too seriously. It’s also a project we find really fun.”
Panamaprent’s anonymity is an integral part of their project. “The concept of Panamaprent, us, the animals, everything — that is also an art piece in itself,” The Pig states. “Panamaprent is the work of art,” The Bunny concludes.
You can find Panamaprent’s entire collection at panamaprent.is and stay in the know about their upcoming work on Instagram and Facebook.
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