OUT IN A NEW CONTEXT WITH ONLY LOOPS TO REMEMBER
Josefin Tingvall, Sweden
ART RESIDENCY IN ICELAND.
With textile materials at hands I met and gave expression to my new surroundings, an monthlong art-residency in the town blöndous in Iceland. The exhibition consists of texts from my logbook with pictures of textile works and picture of the environments that influenced them.
31/10
20 meter each second, I am not used to such a wind. The stable is left alone while I and other small things are blowing around. It´s my second day in Reykjavik, the city feels like an overgrown small town. The water tastes like freshly fallen snow. I visited the Museum of Art and Living art gallery. Reykjavik is located on a bay, I see on the other side mountains with snow on.
1/11
I have been sitting on a bus for three and a half hours and is now waiting for one from the textile center to come and get me at a gas station. Out the bus window, I saw giant mountain, rocky moss landscape, a diverse coastline and light brown sheep hiding in the yellow toned grass.
2/11
My second day in blöndous, yesterday blew the hurricane and I could barely go out. There are no threes here so the wind can blow as freely as it wishes.
My first three days here has been stormy, 20-25 meter each Second. The wind is not malicious or mischievous, the blow to the can and want to. The houses are stable in stone, trashcans are chained. The wind combs the grass, moves the water and pushes people, a wild animal that wines and is impossible to catch.
I see as far as I go, but do not reach where I see.
Around and above me flies two black ravens, they croaks demanding, as only ravens do.
Slow like walking, am I mixing knitting, crochet and embroidery. A maze of paths is emerging from the yarn and forms a compact surface.
The huge, white mountains are playing with me. They put their misty hands in front of their faces and lurking says “where did we go?” and then shows themselves again only to point out that they have been there all along.
The mountains are hiding for me, as I said. Each dinner when I go out, I count the tops that I can see from the textile center. One, two, three, my record is sixteen.
9/11
The sky is blurred! Carelessly! Bright streaks are visible like swirls among the stars. That’s how it starts, the northern lights. Slowly, the atmosphere is heightened, the swirls starts to clear and roll to a pace you cannot follow. The time is 2:07 am and I’ve just seen the northern lights for the first time.
Night-mirror, when the light at night takes over the day’s.
Crystal clear as a ball made out of glass, shines the sun through the morning. I sit at dawn and weaves the night, the way I recall it. My surrounding is blinking, night and day passes.
28/11
11:30 o’clock, the sun has just come up, or up? No, it slides along the edge as if it is afraid of drowning in the middle.
5/12
My month long stay at the textile center passed quickly, and now I’m back at the University again. Sometimes when the night is clear do I look up and wonder if the northern lights will be visible in Blöndous.
All images and text © Josefin Tingval
NTA gallery 