{"id":5374,"date":"2017-03-09T11:39:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T11:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=5374"},"modified":"2017-03-20T16:27:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T16:27:05","slug":"haunting-images-of-icelands-abandoned-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2017\/03\/09\/haunting-images-of-icelands-abandoned-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"Haunting Images Of Iceland\u2019s Abandoned Farms"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2004, poet and publisher A\u00f0alsteinn \u00c1sberg Sigur\u00f0sson and photographer N\u00f6kkvi El\u00edasson paired up with one goal in mind: assembling N\u00f6kkvi\u2019s twenty-years\u2019 worth of photographs of Iceland\u2019s abandoned farms and publishing them alongside Sigur\u00f0sson\u2019s poetry. The resulting collection reveals the ways that Icelandic lifestyles have changed overtime: details as meager as the shape and size of beds, grasses used to scent linens, the equipment used to reap and sow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

N\u00f6kkvi\u2019s remarkable acumen for capturing the natural world\u2019s interaction with these buildings makes them seem sentient, almost human in their decisiveness. The images both dazzle and frighten. The storm that wraps itself around the edges of a stable seems to animate the building, anthropomorphizing the structure through its presence. It reminds of the hidden people of folklore, the elves that protect the highlands from incursion and the ghosts that haunt them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rewind a hundred and fifty years. Iceland\u2019s villages have grown up around the harvest and the church. Massive soil erosion and deforestation have changed the landscape of the island. Iceland\u2019s storytelling culture has blossomed, in part due to the nightly tradition of families reading aloud to one another, in part due to a surplus of sheepskin\u2014for vellum–from husbandry. The industrial revolution is just coming to Iceland. Farmers move in flocks to the city. Women work, first as washerwomen, then in 1915, they get the vote. The city spreads. Many farms are abandoned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rewind another thousand years. Since the settlement of Iceland \u2013 which happened around the year 800\u2014Icelanders have been a primarily agrarian people. The vikings survived by attempting to cultivate the comparatively desolate land, nearly exhausting its supply of trees, but managing to build farms as they had in mainland Scandinavia, though their technique is perhaps better described as ranching. The settlers of the viking age managed to thrive through a combination of farming, hunting, and gathering despite Iceland\u2019s harsh climate, overall lack of viable soil, and many volcanic eruptions. The volcanic eruptions themselves pressed some of the farmers to move.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

N\u00f6kkvi El\u00edasson\u2019s careful cataloging of these structures\u2014many of which have collapsed, been demolished, or converted into summer houses\u2014preserves them. From 1985 to 2012, he traveled to each quadrant of Iceland in pursuit of beauty and managed, ultimately, to catch and keep a gradually disappearing, and crucial, part of Icelandic history.<\/p>\n

Together, these images communicate a wholeness of historical experience that is nearly tangible. The scent of coffee that lingers long after the batch has been worn to dust. The unexpected appearance of buttercups in the middle of what used-to-be a living room. The wheelbarrow still leaned up against the house, even though the garden is long gone.<\/p>\n

The book is available in an updated English edition (published 2013), Black Sky: Vanishing Iceland,<\/em> from Dimma Press<\/a> by emailing dimma@dimma.is<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

In 2004, poet and publisher A\u00f0alsteinn \u00c1sberg Sigur\u00f0sson and photographer N\u00f6kkvi El\u00edasson paired up with one goal in mind: assembling N\u00f6kkvi\u2019s twenty-years\u2019 worth of photographs of Iceland\u2019s abandoned farms and publishing them alongside Sigur\u00f0sson\u2019s poetry. The resulting collection reveals the ways that Icelandic lifestyles have changed overtime: details as meager as the shape and size…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":5378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91060],"tags":[91413,21,91411,91414,9889,9931,91410,91406,91407],"class_list":["post-5374","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-history","tag-abandoned-farms","tag-art","tag-dimma","tag-eydibyli","tag-iceland","tag-icelandic","tag-nokkvi-eliasson","tag-urban-exploration","tag-urbanex"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5374"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5399,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5374\/revisions\/5399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}