The Project is sponsored by
its ecosystem to learn ways of sensing. The project presents the urgency of re-learning to be sensitive, putting sensibility above the computational skill/habit of seeing Nature as a means to an end.
The project’s point of departure is Eggert Ólafsson’s and Bjarni Pálsson’s 1752–57 research log known as Travels in Iceland. Danish authorities assigned the two men to travel around Iceland and collect a comprehensive report of life. The report was published in four languages: Danish, German, French and English, but did not appear in Icelandic until 1943, a year before Iceland would gain full independence from Denmark, following roughly 500 years of colonial rule. Colonialism is known to have transformed physical space at every scale, reorganizing preexisting balances while, through new networks of free circulation, creating the habitats required for life, including microbes, to circulate and thrive. In the case of this particular island-state, however, these effects of colonization have arguably been reversed. The island’s geographic location and literal isolation, combined with the trade monopoly installed by the Danish colonial powers at that time, maintained what may be termed an artificial biosphere. To this day, public authorities refer to this catalogue to define which species belong to ‘Icelandic nature’. This ongoing maintenance of the island’s isolation makes it an interesting node to reconsider what defines ecological systems and their immune systems. The title of the research project IMMUNE/ÓNÆM touches on this by questioning the immunity of an island as a state of exception from the flux of microbes.
The project consisted of two preparation phases. From October 2020 till June of 2021 participants met online to present their focus drawn from the report. In summer of 2021 each participant had a research meeting in Iceland diving further into their topic. In The Living Arts Museum in Reykjavík, participants will show their results of research alongside a discursive platform with invited participants 19th of March – 1st of May 2022.
The project is funded by Nordic Culture Point, Nordic Culture Fund, Science and Welfare: Fund of Sigrún Júlíusdóttir and Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson, Danish Art Council, Goethe Institut London, Reykjavík City, Swedish Arts Grants Committee and Icelandic Visual Arts Fund. Toyota in Iceland gave a generous deal for the project’s participants to travel around the island.
Initiator and organiser/host of the project is Bryndís Björnsdóttir.
Participants: Annarosa Krøyer Holm, hands.on.matter collective (Sandra Nicoline Nielsen and Tim Van Der Loo, Herring Iron Gunpowder, Humans & Sugar collective (Olando Whyte and Rut Karin Zettergren), Páll Haukur Björnsson, Sheida Soleimani, The Many Headed Hydra (Aziz Sohail, Emma Haugh and Suza Husse).
Graphic/web designer: Helga Kjerúlf
Images on the front page are copperplate engravings from Jonas Haas (1720-1775) created in relation to Travels in Iceland.
“We form a rhizome with our viruses, or rather our viruses cause us to form a rhizome with other animals” (Deleuze & Guattari)
“The mountains of Iceland should be divided into two kinds, ordinary and extraordinary” (Ólafsson & Pálsson)
In 1752, the Danish Crown assigned two Icelandic nationals, poet and legal scholar Eggert Ólafsson and physician Bjarni Pálsson, to travel around Iceland for five years and collect a comprehensive report of life on the island. Their assigned objective was to estimate possible margins of improvement of the island as Denmark’s colony. For that purpose, a detailed account of the island’s natural history was seen as the basis upon which agricultural reformers could build, while debunking any previous mythical, exotic narrations of the island of monsters and fire lakes. A few years later, the duo’s report, Travels in Iceland, was published in four languages: Danish, German, French and English. It was not until 1943, however, that the book came out in an Icelandic translation, one year before Iceland would gain full independence from Denmark after roughly 500 years of colonial rule. Denmark’s colonization of Iceland was most clearly defined by a trade monopoly, which isolated the island’s habitat more thoroughly than the geographical location alone ever could. During the 19th century’s independence movement, the preservation of traditions and language inevitably became the source of national value and identity. Ólafsson’s and Pálsson’s report, Travels in Iceland, came to be seen as a fundamental criterion for the definition of ‘Icelandic nature’, what is considered the country’s native biota.
To this day, the public Icelandic Institute of Natural History refers to the report to define native flora and fauna as opposed to invasive species. Strict regulations supposedly keep ecosystems intact and safeguard the island’s livestock against infections and disease. Meanwhile, the import of any plant, animal or soil is dependent on a permit from Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority. Through such institutes,a notion of intact and pristine nature is incorporated in culture, politics and bureaucracy. This institutional immune system is the basis for the questions posed by the research project I M M U N E / Ó N Æ M.
Colonialism is known to have transformed physical space at every scale, reorganizing preexisting balances while, through new networks of free circulation, creating the habitats required for microbes to circulate and thrive. In the case of this particular island-state, however, these effects of colonization have arguably been reversed. The island’s geographic location and literal isolation, combined with the trade monopoly, maintained what may be termed an artificial biosphere. This ongoing maintenance of the island’s isolation makes it an interesting node to reconsider what defines ecological systems and their immune systems. The title of the research project I M M U N E / Ó N Æ M touches on this by questioning the immunity of an island as a state of exception from the flux of microbes, while reflecting on recent understandings of immune systems.
As the current crisis forcefully reminds us, symbiotic relations with and within microbial system are not solely harmonious but can be laid with conflict. From that standpoint, we aim to present the open question of what is to be learned from microbial world-systems. Through reflections on how to become with bacteria, the image and terminology of the immune system as a militarized defense system, it is our intention to question the nation-state as a body and the body as a nation-state. The project’s emphasis on the microbial is in tune with Suely Rolnik’s notion of microspheres’ modes of existence as capable of interrupting the colonial-capitalist unconscious. Our investigation will emphasize the possible activation of a physical ability for poetic-political actions. Rolnik claims that with- out such activation “the only possibility is to produce variations around the modes of production of subjectivity and of cognition that found us as colonies of Western Europe – precisely the condition from which we want to escape.”
The rich microbial world-system of the island’s geothermal waters, which count among its main natural resources, contains knowledge of ancient life-forms and has captured interest within the field of astrobiology. In what Benjamin H. Bratton has labelled a new Copernican turn, human intervention has made Earth itself a terraforming project. Icelands terrain is considered geologically similar to land- scapes of other planets and has a history of NASA using it as training grounds for expeditions. This largely desolate island, barely habitable were it not for the harnessing of geothermal energy, is a prime example of a continuous terraforming project. The island is a node to rethink how future relations can be build on this planet and ideas of nature.
As widely reported, due to global warming, the Arctic is on the threshold of vast transformations. In terms of routes and resources it has been labelled ‘the last frontier.’ The project will revisit Ólafsson’s and Pálssons Travels in Iceland when changing trading routes are in the process of forming new constellations of move- ment. The project gives a platform for the sensibilities involved in artistic research, to navigate the 18th century catalogue and its topics today, as implied by the title I M M U N E / Ó N Æ M: the Icelandic equivalent for immune is the adjective ónæm, which might be literally translated back as insensitive. The project presents the urgency of re-learning to be sensitive, putting sensibility above the computational skill/habit of seeing Nature as a means to an end.
Further, the project’s title implies the need to revoke the notion of a community. As the philosopher Roberto Esposito points out a common Latin root is shared with the terms immunity and community, munus, or the duty (tax, tribute, gift) some- one must pay to be part of the community. The community is cum (with) munus: a human group connected by common law and reciprocal obligation. The noun immunitas is a privative word that stems from the negation of munus. In Roman law he who was exempted was immunized and he who had been de-munized had been stripped of all community privilege. It is urgent to transform our understanding of community and immunity within our entire planet as writer Paul B. Preciado points out, separation is no longer possible.
The project’s participants come from a cross-national background: Iceland, Denmark, Holland, Germany, USA/Iran, Pakistan, Ireland, Sweden and Jamaica. The unique make-up of the participants within the project is the numerous collective that it consists of. The island is an important location, geographically and culturally, to revive the notion of solidarity and cross-border alliances. It is therefore from the notion of a cluster that we establish our collaborative practices. The island was long termed a frontier of civilization within the same genre that the Travels of Iceland is written in. In 19th century travel literature, the islanders were described as the barbarians outside of Europe. With Iceland’s independence movement, the island clinged to ancient sagas and literature to build up an identity that was accepted by civilized nations of Europe. It is however this same identity that influenced seclusive national identities of Western Europe. From this midpoint of tectonic plates we are able to rethink how to assemble.
Bio: Bryndís Björnsdóttir (Dísa) is an artist, writer and researcher. Their practice is based on creating poetic connections through the interweaving of themes such as landscape, technologies, bodies and economic power. In the last years, she has focused on alternative understandings of nature and decolonial readings of land. In 2010-2016 Dísa initiated and established an international research project at a former NATO-base in Iceland called Occupational Hazard. In 2009-2012 she co-managed Útúrdúr; an artist bookstore, publishing house and project space in Reykjavík. She holds an MA degree from Raumstrategien (Spatial Strategies), an interdisciplinary artistic research programme at Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin since 2017. Dísa is currently developing and managing a collaborative research project called IMMUNE/ÓNÆM and is a new member of the Many Headed Hydra collective, a shapeshifting collective of queer&feminist ecologies and collaborative ritual practices.
Meeting online: 11. October 2020 – Bryndís Björnsdóttir | Introduction to the project and processes
Meeting online: 29. November 2020 – hands.on.matter | Introduction to their research on the Icelandic banana
Meeting online: 25th of February 2021 – Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson (Páll Haukur hosted) | Life on Mars
Meeting online: 8th of April 2021 – The Many Headed Hydra | Introduction to their research of Harbour Failures
Meeting online: 8th of Apríl 2021 – Sheida Soleimani | Introduction to research on fuel sources
Meeting online: 27th of Apríl 2021 – Sigurður Gísli Reynisson | Carbfix
Meeting online: 18th of May 2021 – Kristín Loftsdóttir | Whiteness and Nordic exceptionalism
Meeting online: 3rd of June 2021 – Annarosa Holm | Introduction to research into clay and kaolin
Meeting online: 3rd of June 2021 – Herring, Iron, Gunpowder, Humans & Sugar | Introduction into research of salt fish and ackee plant
With the melting of ice and rising sea levels the sea has become a defining factor for a New North Atlantic, forming what has been termed an archipelagic sea-consciousness of islands. With the new waterways being drawn the outlines of the old become as prominent. In the seminar ecology-as-intersectionality (concept of T.J Demos) special focus will be put on revising and reconnecting relations as well as expanding on the connectivity of the sea and its routes with the Global South. The discursive platform is held in relation to the exhibition and research project IMMUNE/ÓNÆM. The project basis itself on the colonial report of Icelands natural resource, Travels in Iceland. The event is seen as touching upon the topics of IMMUNE/ÓNÆM while as well giving updates or thoughts on ever vibrating shifts of relations and connections to be built as we continue to learn how to assemble.
— Andreas Hoffmann, Erik DeLuca, Wiola Ujazdowska & Bryndís Björnsdóttir – Reflection nodes
Coffee break
— Zahra Malkani & Aziz Sohail – A conversation between Zahra Malkani and Aziz Sohail’
— Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory- Video screening and talk AATOOQ (Full of blood
— Ruth Phoebe Tchana- Unmanaged Subarctic Grassland Growth Processes And Plant Stress Evolution In A Warmer World.
— Wiola Ujazdowska & Anna Wojtyńska – Migration and plants
Coffee break
— Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann – Inuit microbial foodways
— T.J. Demos – Ecology-as-intersectionality
— Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory or Laakkuluk, is a kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) performance artist, poet, actor, curator, storyteller and writer. She is known for performing uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance. She performs internationally, collaborates with other artists and is a fierce advocate for Inuit artists.
— Erik DeLuca
Erik DeLuca is an artist and musician working with performance, sculpture, and text, in dialogue with social practice and critique. He has presented at a variety of places including MASS MoCA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, The Contemporary Austin, The Living Art Museum (Iceland), Columbia School of the Arts, Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture, CalArts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Fieldwork: Marfa, and Yale University School of Art. His writing projects are published in Public Art Dialogue (Taylor & Francis), Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press), Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press), and Mousse. He received a PhD in Music from the University of Virginia (2016), was in Myanmar with the support of an Asian Cultural Council grant (2018), and lectured at the Iceland University of the Arts (2016-2018). He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Multimedia at Brown University and Lecturer in Experimental and Foundation Studies at Rhode Island School of Design.
— T.J. Demos
T. J. Demos is the Patricia and Rowland Rebele Endowed Chair in Art History in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture, at University of California, Santa Cruz, and founding Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. Demos is the author of numerous books, including Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press, 2017); Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology(Sternberg Press, 2016); The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary During Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013) – winner of the College Art Association’s 2014 Frank Jewett Mather Award – and Return to the Postcolony: Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press, 2013). He recently co-edited The Routledge Companion on Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change (2021), was a Getty Research Institute Fellow (Spring 2020), and directed the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar research project Beyond the End of the World (2019-21). Demos was recently Chair and Chief Curator of the Climate Collective, providing public programming related to the 2021 Climate Emergency > Emergence program at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Maat) in Lisbon. He is presently working on a new book on radical futurism.
— Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann
Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann, Ph.D., is a Kalaaleq microbiologist. Her research connects microbes, Inuit foodways, fermentation and food sovereignty. She is currently an assistant professor at Ilisimatusarfik and a visiting scholar at University of California, Davis.
— Andreas Hoffmann
Andreas Hoffmann is a curator with focus on circumpolar art as well as a writer, researcher, lecturer, currently artistic director for Arctic Culture Lab based on the Northwest Coast of Greenland. He is interested in new approaches and innovative concepts to improve audience development in the peripheries where cultural workers often face a gap between programming artistic concepts and expectations of the local society due to demography as well as social and educational background. Studied philosophy, history and musicology in Heidelberg, Salzburg and Brno and Reconsilation through Indigenous Education at the University of British Columbia. Since 1987 he curates performance- , music-, and contemporary art-festivals and exhibitions in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Sweden, Czech Republic, Greenland as well as Norway.
Since 1990 he is lecturing at several universities (Charles University Prague, PennState University, State Humanitarian University Moscow, University Salzburg, Boston University, Mozarteum Salzburg, University of Freiburg, to name a few).
— Wiola Ujazdowska & Anna Wojtyńska
Wiola Ujazdowska is an art worker and performer living in Iceland. She holds an M.A in Art Theory from Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland where she also studied Painting and Sainted Glass at the Department of Fine Arts in Lech Wolski master studio and Andrzej Kałucki glass workshop. 2012-2013 she studied in CICS, Cologne, Germany. Since 2014 she lives in Reykjavik. Her works have been shown in the U.S.A, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Iceland. Ujazdowska’s practice is balancing between socially engaged art, happenings and video works in which she talks about experiences of excluded groups in Nordic societies to show global phenomenons in a local context. She is mostly focusing on the group that she is most familiar with – working class migrants from East Europe. Methodology that she uses in her projects is inspired by anthropology and literature studies focused on linguistic processes of othering, post-humanistic perspectives on the other and philosophical concepts of identity. Her practice is a form of rejection of traditional way of making artworks in favor of a collective creation and recycling of already existing objects and materials to avoid overproduction of art. Creator of set design for theater works by Reykjavik Ensemble, Leikhópurinn PóliS and idepentent Alina Beylyagina as well curator of VOR/WIOSNA festival produced by MMF/Slaturhusid in Egilsstadir and ACT_IN_OUT international project (PL/IS/NO) awarded by a EEA grant program. She is also a member of collectives : Beyond The Post-Soviet – that gathers art workers coming from countries of so called “East Block” and dealing with post-soviet identity in their practices and AIVAG – Artists in Iceland Visa Action Group – collective that works on creating artists visa for creators outside Schengen area in Iceland.
Anna Wojtyńska holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Iceland and MA from the University of Warsaw. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in a project “What Integration Looks Like in Rural Locations: Studies in Icelandic Villages” In the past years, she was studying various aspect related to Polish migration to Iceland. Her specific interest includes migrants’ labour market position and transnational practices. Recently she has been also looking at representation of migration in arts.
— Ruth Phoebe Tchana Wandji
I am Ruth Phoebe Tchana, a graduate from AgroParisTech – University of Montpellier, France in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution. I am currently part of a European Project called FutureArctic (futurearctic.be) and hosted by Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands (Agricultural University of Iceland) under Prof. Bjarni D. Sigurdsson’s supervision. Within the university, I am enrolled under the Environmental and Forest Sciences faculty, doing my research in Plant Ecology. My main focus is on subarctic plant phenology and stress evolution in a warmer world, that is, the plants growth phases, physical or chemical processes.