Seyðisfjörður is currently preparing for the come-back of the sun. Last year the light was celebrated in a visual way through a new light festival List i Ljósi and this year the celebration continues in late February – through performances, sculptures, film and installations.
Leading up to the festival Skaftfell organised an art workshop in Seyðisfjarðarskóli and got two artists; Hrafnhildur Gissurardóttir and Laura Tack, to lead the workshop. The focal point was worked around the concept of Light and Darkness and was available for grades 1 – 6 in Seyðisfjarðarskóli, for a total of 43 students.
The results can be seen and experienced in an exhibition in the old bookshop, Austurvegur 23, on Saturday Feb 25 from 19.30 .
During one week at a time the artists worked closely together with the children of each grade. They gathered ideas, played, walked in silence, reflected, inspired each other, painted, sculpted, documented. The starting point of each workshop was to pose questions to encourage a discussion around the idea or meaning of light and dark:
What does it mean? how does it look like? How does it feel? What does it smell like?
And how can we visualise the abstract meaning of light and dark?
The 1st and 2nd grade made a poetic shadow play where the children told a story about the forgotten creatures in the sea, the everyday life on land and the creatures in space.
The 3rd grade sculpted dark and they sculpted light. They sculpted the tension between the two.
During the process they discovered that everything can be sculpture.
The 4th grade took the stage and performed a theatre play. They created a jungle where man, woman and animal took the stage depending on they´re prime time ; day or night.
The 5th and 6th grade directed a stop motion video in where contemporary political issues were tackled, destroyed, reinvented and appreciated. The story starts with the main villain Donald Trump entering Iceland with the Norröna ferry in Seyðisfjörður.