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Undoing The Romanticisation Of The Starving Artist
Examining the realities of making a living as a professional artist in Iceland Typical party conversation, any evening at random between 1997 and 2025: Random guest: So, what do you do for a living? Me: I’m a professional visual artist. Random guest:…
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Fúsk It! Iceland’s Burgeoning Creative Hub
An ideal driven laboratory, a creative platform, a community hub, a playground for creatives, an organic and living concept that is difficult to reduce to one meagre sentence. However, its name goes a long way. Fúsk, in Icelandic, means ‘doing something even…
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Strangers In The North: ‘Visitations’ Wins The Visual Arts Prize
Polar bear encounters in Iceland tend to take a predictable form: a bear, often weak and emaciated, is spotted by a local. Panic ensues; the police are called, the media incites a brief hysteria. The bear is shot. This chaotic cycle, doomed…
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New Frontiers of Technology: NFTs in Iceland
Artists in Iceland are using NFTs to change the landscape around them – forever. On March 11th, 2021, an artist, known to his online fans as ‘Beeple’, made history. His digital piece, entitled ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’ was listed by…
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KÓPÓ! Herra Hnetusmjör Brings The Flow And The Fest
The landscape of Icelandic rap has been ever-evolving since the first fully Icelandic language rap albums dropped in 2001. While English-language hip hop existed in Iceland before this point, the linguistic shift provided a crucial turning point which continues to influence the…
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Two Icelanders On Top 25 Artists Of 21st Century List, One Of Them In Top Spot
Two Icelandic artists not only made the cut in The Guardian’s Best Visual Art Of The 21st Century list; one of them, Ragnar Kjartansson (seen above), made the top spot. Ragnar topped the list, beating out such celebrated artists as Ai Wewei…
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Design Diplomacy Sparks Dialogue Between Artists
While DesignMarch is primarily a celebration of the best of Icelandic Design, the program is anything but insular. It’s quite the opposite really, and this particular iteration of the annual event presents a plethora of international collaborations. From the 1+1+1 collective—which brings…
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The Short Friendship Of An Icelandic Artist With The Woman Stealing Her Art
[update: the last name of Caroline has been omitted] It could have been awkward, but instead, Inga Maria’s stay at a summer house in þingvellir became a weekend of bonding and sharing, like-minded women connecting as artists and, more deeply, as friends.…
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Old As Folk: An Airwaves’ Off-venue Retirement Home With Svavar Knútur
Iceland Airwaves is special for a lot of reasons, not least its array of weird and wonderful off-venues. From private homes to dumpsters, you can hear and see lots of strange and magical things in strange and magical places this weekend. However,…
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Stand-up Comedy At Airwaves: Jóhann Thinks You Can Do Five Minutes
For the first time at Iceland Airwaves, there will be English-language, stand-up comedy every night, at the venue Gaukurinn. There will be two comedians every night at 18:30. The Icelandic comedy scene has been growing steadily for a year, but it was…
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A Downer Crowd, Icelandic Bro-Hop And Synth Driven Lolita Fantasies
The evening started quietly at Hressingarskálinn on Saturday evening, not a lot of commotion going on as venue opener Jara took the stage. Being the first one up, she was obviously dealing with a rather tired and stiff crowd. Jara played for a little over…
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THE EXPLORER
Högni Egilsson on singing, sailing and the making of Grapevine’s album of 2012, Hjaltalín’s ‘Enter IV’
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Mammút
The group is a powerhouse on stage, delivering series of searing post-punk songs that are terrifically fractured and neurotic. Guitarists Arnar and Alexandra deliver notes in tight clusters, and the songs stike like stabs to the chest. Vocalist Kata is just as…
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Strigaskór nr. 42
Strigaskór nr. 42 is a band with quite a long history but sporatic activity through the years. Formed in the late eighties, Strigaskór nr. 42 came to be at the forefront of the vibrant Icelandic death-metal scene in the early nineties. The band’s…
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Stroff
The band Stroff was formed in early 2012 when guitarists Örn Ingi and Árni Thor met regularly to play. Then they got Markús, Harald and Friðrik in on it and all of the sudden they had a new band. Stroff members are…
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Stealing Sheep (UK)
Stealing Sheep is noisily drenched voodoo-pop from Liverpool. Their music comes at you in the hazy shape of psychedelic folktronica, medieval synths, hypnotic beats, spiraling whammy guitars, MYSTICAL harmonies and apocalyptic thunder drones. With their glitchy percussion, gossamer-light harmonies, analogue synths and…
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Stafrænn Hákon
The Icelandic Stafrænn Hákon will release his 7th album in November / December, ‘Prammi.’ The album contains 13 compositions that were written and produced by Ólafur Jósephsson, the driving force of Stafrænn Hákon. Since 2001, Ólafur has recorded under the Stafrænn Hákon moniker…
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Sóley
Sóley has already caused a massive stir online with over 10 million hits on YouTube and a rapidly growing fanbase in every corner of the world. Since the release of her ‘Theater Island’ EP in 2010 and ‘We Sink’ album in 2011…
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Sometime
Sometime’s the Danni and Diva de la Rosa take listeners through the borealis on a spacey synth infused vehicle with their music. TheDanni writes, records and produces alongside Diva de la Rosa who creates lyrics and vocals for the band. Both hail…
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Subminimal
Tjörvi Óskarsson has been making all kinds of music for years, but in the recent years his reputation has been growing in the local electronic music scene with more live performances and releases and remixes. His music is inspired by jungle and…
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BYRTA (FO)
BYRTA is a new pop duo from The Faroe Islands with members Guðrið Hansdóttir and Janus Rasmussen. Guðrið is best know as a singer-songwriter and Janus is best known for his role in Icelandic electro band Bloodgroup. They met while they were…
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Sólstafir
Sólstafir is a metal band from Reykjavík, Iceland which formed in 1995 and currently has four, full length releases. The band’s unique style has made it hard to categorize into a specific genre or group of genres. They are known for highly energetic…
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Borko
He has the beard of a freedom fighter and the battlefield is our hearts. Long before his debut album, ‘Celebrating Life,’ was released in 2008, Borko had been one of the most influential stalwarts in Reykjavík’s boiling music scene. He has been…