venue: Mega Vott, Hafnarborg Cultural Center, Hafnarfjörður, Iceland

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Sounds in a multi-voiced world
By Harpa Þórsdóttir

Life is an inexhaustible source of material for creation,and the ideals of humans and their fighting spirit can become the power behind zealous work and great output. The works of Anna Eyjólfsdóttir hold the traits of sharp righteous thought in the community we live in. Anna has her own sound in a multi-voiced world.
In Harmony (1994), a story is told simply but effectively on the development and progress of the Icelandic society in the 20th century. The aprons of women working in the fishing industry are hung up and from loudspeakers we hear the sound of voices and machines from a freezing plant. The aprons form a circle outside like a tower of flags. They blow with the wind and from the presentation of the work you can distinguish the pride of the women who for a short while were the foundation of the fishing industry in Iceland. Women have always worked in this industry, an industry with jobs that people scorn nowadays. This work reminds us of who we are and from where we come. It bears no negative connotations. Anna has in further works continued with similar references.
At the exhibition The Emperor’s New Clothes at the Living Art Museum she exhibited All is not what it seems where she published the predictions of a well-known fortune teller on 12 women artists. This was Anna’s way of showing that the woman working at a fish factory is equal to the woman artist, and that both lines of work are serious. Their jobs are dignified and equal to other jobs in society. Anna uses unusual materials for her work and often features what we don’t notice anymore or those things that have lost their meaning through the passage of time. In one of her works she places plungers next to discarded chewing gum on the pavement in front of the exhibition hall (Gerðuberg, 2000). In this way she brings attention to this common and dirty habit on city pavements and creates a message on necessary respect for our environment.
Shouldn’t we start with the simplest things, ourselves, before we start to make the world a better place?
Another example of material use is from the exhibition Öðrum þræði (Another Thread) in Gerðarsafn Museum in 1994 where only wire coat hangers are used. The works differed in many ways, from being studies in patterns found in traditional Icelandic artwork to variations of different forms. In these works she uses the form of the coat hanger to work with.
The coat hanger as such has no meaning in the work, it is just a base material. The wire works also show how she searches for material. She uses things that she has been collecting for a long time. In this context one can name glass and clay objects, which she has used in several works (for example at Laugarvatn 2005 and Korpúlfsstaðir 2006).
The outdoor work Signalling Flags (2000) was at the exhibition of the Icelandic Sculptors Association called Strandlengjan (The Coastline) and spoke to the ocean in a literal sense. The flags she put up in the work are international ship flags and in them one can read the words “Strandlengjan 2000”. In this work the artist communicates art to the ranks of sailors and fishermen in their own language. One can ponder the question of man’s accessibility to contemporary art and what kind of communication tool art really is when looking at this work, which also tackles how one thing can be accessible to one person but alien to another.
It’s quite possible that Anna’s largest work to date, outdoor work Paradeisos/ Intra muros, exhibited at the Reykjavík Art Museum-Harbour House at the birthday exhibition of the Icelandic Sculptors Association in 2002, testifies to the artist’s positive attitude towards life. Art history includes works from various times where artists have been dealing with an idealistic paradise, a place where birds sing and men and nature live together in peace and harmony. But in Anna’s work there is a certain irony, which is
outdoors but still within walls. It bears references to a number of things, and Anna has said that she
is honouring the memory of the workers who once worked in the courtyard of the Harbour House as well as the house itself. This work is therefore a memorial and at the same time a reminder of opposites. Can nature thrive within walls, within manmade cities and landscapes? Many of Anna’s works are on the topic of the environment, such as Voyage II (1995), Figurehead (1997) and Ey-var, a large wooden pole set up at an exhibition at the Living Art Museum in 1995.
The work is one of two of her works at the exhibition where nature’s cycle is the subject. At the top of
the pole was a bowl-like dent, filled with birch tree seeds, therefore the pole became the beginning of
a natural cycle. Birds would arrive, eat the seeds and later disperse them. A strong political conscience is apparent in many of Anna’s works and at the exhibition Political Thinking at the ASÍ Art Museum in 2001 she exhibited works that featured the ten years of Davíð Oddsson’s seat as prime minister.
Political works have not been common in Icelandic art but here was an exhibition where the artist decided to feature, in a symbolic manner, the political interest in culture, or lack of, rather. The aggressive question asked here is whether it matters at all who is in power, and what they leave behind.
There is a serious undertone to the works Anna exhibited at the Figment of Love exhibition at Reykjavik
Art Museum-Kjarvalsstaðir in 2004. The works were manifold but as the subtitle reveals it tackles “love, pain and petty private investigations.” Most of the works were made from a child’s standpoint, using children’s toys, readings from fairy tales and sculptures pointing to fairy tales.

The artist’s fantasy world in the making of this exhibition was established on her view that life is a play and that we are all willing participants. It was her personal showdown with her childhood memories.
One of the works was a cupboard with shelves, each containing one memory.
Each shelf portrayed a scene from her childhood with small, naïve figurines and furniture. Iconography
featuring children often touches a nerve as the meaning can become ambiguous. Photographs on a wall printed on plaster of Paris sheets and wrapped in gauze showed people in various poses, reminding us that wounds can be tended to and healed.
As previously stated, Anna’s work often recounts her own experiences and results of different behaviour
from moralistic, social and political premises. One of Anna’s latest works that combines this train of thought is Thinking for Sink (2006), a large porcelain sink placed on table legs, full of dishes. The sink is a strong symbol for the home and the regular rituals associated with it. Anna’s works often carry a message to conquer apathy and tepidity, wherever these traits may come from.
 

Harpa Þórsdóttir - art historian, and museum director of National Gallery of Iceland.

From the book Mega Vott, published by Taragrúpp / Academy of the Senses, Iceland.