Welcome To Hamraborg: “The Only True City In Iceland”

Since its inception in 2021, Hamraborg Festival has been thriving on the fringes. Literally, of course, with its residence in Kópavogur, not Reykjavík. But, also ideologically. This fourth iteration of the festival, spearheaded and curated by Agnes Ársælsdóttir, Jo Pawlowska and Sveinn Snær Kristjánsson, will run from August 29 to September 5.

As they sunbathe on the porch of Bókasafn Kópavogs — “our office,” they joke — Jo and Agnes chitchat about the upcoming festival. Jo dons the pink, punk Hamraborg Festival scarf and shiny silver sunglasses, while Agnes is in bright, colourful sneakers. “I’m wearing my running shoes all the time now, just getting prepared! They even have grips,” Agnes notes with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Jo, who has been in Iceland since 2018 and part of Hamraborg Festival from the start, is an intermedia artist. Enthralling and playful, their work explores hybrid gendered bodies, internet narratives and radical queer intimacies. Raised in Kópavogur, Agnes is an artist, writer and current student of curation who focuses on non-human life in her art.

Artists wearing their curator hats

The two emphasise that their ability to understand both the curator and the artist side of a festival is crucial to the way they work. Agnes even jokes that they “think every artist should be a curator, actually. It’s a radical opinion, maybe!”

She goes on to poetically describe that the curator’s role “is to be the weight and to be the carrier, so that artists can jump as high as they can and do their little twirls and falls and little things.”

The core trio of the festival’s organising team describe their clear communication and collaboration: “our work dynamic is very intentional, focusing on care,” Jo explains.

Cross the street and meet the other side

“It’s very interesting to get reacquainted on these terms, to make an arts festival, to see all of the multiple sides of every corner that can be brought out with different pieces, in different contexts,” Agnes shares when asked how it feels to return to Kópavogur’s Kársnes neighbourhood in this context.

“Hamraborg Festival is playful and funky. We are just horsing around, mindfully and intentionally.”

A big goal of the festival is to interweave these corners of Hamraborg with each other. “It’s so multifaceted, the Hamraborg area,” Agnes explains. “Some people never go across the street from here, you know, or the other way around. So it’s quite interesting and I think that’s also a goal we have in our curatorial practices, to try and invite those groups to exchange also. If you only come here for openings at Gerðarsafn, you all of a sudden have an invitation to come to Catalina for concerts — and the other way around, as well.”

This exciting, wandering purpose permeates their festival programme: events range from paper-making to a fashion show, spanning locations from Y Gallery to Euromarket. “Hamraborg Festival is playful and funky. We are just horsing around, mindfully and intentionally,” Jo declares. Agnes adds to this sentiment, humbly saying “not to say that we’re inventing the wheel, but I think still, in Iceland, there’s so few chances to do these kinds of experiments. Here we’re providing some kind of platform for that to happen.”

A socially-oriented art festival

“Being mindful about intergenerational dialogues that very much exist in Hamraborg, we also try to accommodate different needs,” Jo identifies. “Therefore, you also have workshops like interactive performances dedicated to younger folks and children and teenagers.” Throughout the interview both note a keen interest in social relationships and dynamics, which informs how they think about the festival. As Jo puts it, “what I like about Hamraborg Festival is that it’s a very socially-oriented art festival.”

Nonnegotiably, every event of the festival is free. “I think, if you’re trying to build a community with people coming from different places, with different class structures, it needs to be free. It’s like, those are the terms” Agnes states. “We’re really lucky. We’re in a good collaborative relationship with Kópavogsbær, where we apply every year for this festival and are very generously granted.” This year the team also received grants from Myndlistarsjóður (the Visual Arts Fund) and from Barnamenningarsjóður (the Children’s Arts Fund).

“You also have workshops like interactive performances dedicated to younger folks and children and teenagers.”

The two note that this is not light work, of course — it’s something the three person team has to focus on year round. “I think we are much more established right now and people do recognize the value of the festival. Every year, more people are showing up to events and workshops and exhibitions,” Jo observes. “I think what we’re so generously allowed to do with hosting this festival again and again, is that you get to dwell and peek beyond the surface,” Agnes adds.

Jo notes that the first Hamraborg Festival was still “a big risk.” Blossoming from the Midpunkt venue that used to reside in Hamraborg, the artists and co-founders of that space, Ragnheiður Sigurðardóttir Bjarnarson and Snæbjörn Brynjarsson, are praised by Agnes and Jo throughout our interview. The two also mention the book Með Hamraborgir á Heilanum (“With Hamraborg on the Brain”), which debuted during the 2022 festival. A collection of writings about the area by nine different authors, and edited by Snæbjörn and designed by Sveinn, the book is “dedicated to the only true city in Iceland: Hamraborg.”

A celebration of oddity

Kamil Wesołowski, self-described “artist, fashion designer, performer, a dudette,” is travelling from Poland for this year’s Hamraborg Festival, specifically to put on a much anticipated fashion show. When I ask Kamil for themes present in his work that echo themes found in the festival, she presents a beautiful list: “Diversity for sure! Being vulnerable. Queerness. Being yourself. Celebration of oddity.”

Icelandic-based artist Deepa R. Iyengar echoes this sentiment, sharing that she sees “such life and joy and inclusiveness in the festival. Inclusiveness not only of many types of people, but also many types and forms of art.”

Jo also underscores the importance of inclusivity — specifically the purposeful inclusion of many queer artists in the festival — explaining that “this is something we were very intentional about this year, to not only invite artists working with different art mediums and different art practices, but also to invite different audiences and go beyond these binaries as well. I think Hamraborg is a super queer and non-binary space, in that sense.”

“I think these types of phenomena can only live in Hamraborg, like they can only exist in Hamraborg.”

Sveinn echoes Jo in his characterisation of Hamraborg. “It still seems amazing to me how much character the place has,” he tells me. “It’s so defined in such a unique way, from the super weird architecture to the vastly different people that hang around there. The place seemed queer in a way.”

Whether celebrating the one-of-a-kind area, or how artists and appreciators can find their home in this hub, it is striking how much respect everyone has for Hamraborg. Summarising this mystic charm that keeps getting alluded to, Kópavogur-native Agnes puts it perfectly: “I think these types of phenomena can only live in Hamraborg, like they can only exist in Hamraborg.”

“Now it’s going to be the fourth time for the festival here in Hamraborg — a space to dream and bring people together,” Jo says with excited gumption as we reached the end of our interview. “What kind of burst of togetherness can come if we burst these art bubbles? And what can spring from that?” they wonder. “What can happen if you allow yourself to submit to this fluidity?”

Let’s all find out in Hamraborg.

Hamraborg Festival runs from August 29–September 5. Check HamraborgFestival.is and more links here.