{"id":10831,"date":"2018-05-21T12:46:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T12:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/exhibition\/birds-of-passage-1998-2018\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T12:05:31","slug":"birds-of-passage-1998-2018","status":"publish","type":"exhibition","link":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/exhibition\/birds-of-passage-1998-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds of passage 1998-2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>An artist residency \u201cis an outcome of time, place and people and it offers an opportunity for enduring relationships and a profound communion with both art and one\u2019s own thoughts.\u201c <sup>1<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin: .1pt 0cm .1pt 0cm;\">20 years of Skaftfell\u2019s artist-in-residency program have resulted in 250 artists coming to Sey\u00f0isfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur and to East Iceland. Some have left a physical trace behind, or a trace in someone\u2019s memory. Some have returned many times, and some have stayed for good.<\/p>\n<p>Birds of passage presents a visual journey down memory lane from Skaftfell\u2019s residency archive, and artwork by current artists-in-residence Hannimari Jokinen and Joe Sam-Essandoh, Jemila MacEwan, and\u00a0Elena Mazzi in collaboration with Sara Tirelli.<\/p>\n<p>On June 9 a symposium will bring Skaftfell\u2019s former and present\u00a0\u201cart workers\u201d and facilitators\u00a0together with colleagues from\u00a0similar residency programs in East Iceland, and invites them to share their thoughts and experiences regarding\u00a0the art of hosting. The symposium will discuss why it<span lang=\"IS\">\u00a0is locally and globally important to continue to support and develop artist residency programs, and to host artists from all over the world\u00a0in remote regions such as East Iceland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Program:<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Sat 26th May 14:00-15:00<br \/>\n&#8222;<em>Reset. Decolonizing Methods in Art&#8220;<\/em><br \/>\nLecture by Hamburg based artists Hannimari Jokinen and Joe Sam-Essandoh. The duo will present their ongoing research on the transatlantic enslavement trade, connecting Denmark, Hamburg-Altona, the Caribbean, Westafrica, and Iceland. During their residency at Skaftfell they have been investigating the unusual life of Hans Jonathan, who escaped enslavement and who settled in East Iceland in 1802. He started a family in Dj\u00fapivogur and lived there as a highly respected person, and as the head of the trading post where he sold sugar and coffee, among other commodities. The two artists commemorate his global journey and his local vestiges in their artwork. The lecture will be followed by a short performance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Sat 9th June 13:00-15:00<br \/>\n<em>Birds of passage 1998-2018<\/em><br \/>\nSymposium reflecting upon the development of artist residencies in East Iceland since the millennium, and where to go next. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/?p=14097\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Artist bios<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Elena Mazzi\u00a0<\/strong>was born in 1984 in Reggio Emilia (Italy). Her multimedial works have been displayed in many solo and collective exhibitions, among them the 14th Istanbul Biennale, the 17th BJCEM Mediterranean Biennale, Fittja pavilion in a collateral event at the 14<sup>th<\/sup>Venice Architecture Biennale, and COP17 in Durban.\u00a0Elena\u2019s project in Iceland, \u2018Resilient borders\u2019, intends to analyze how the structure of surrounding spaces can influence our perception of belonging and freedom, through the notion of geographical borders.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hannimari Jokinen\u00a0<\/strong>is a visual artist and curator, born in Helsinki\/Finland, and based in Hamburg\/Germany. She studied art, linguistics, education, and culture management. Her practice includes art in urban space, participatory projects, community art, film, photography, installation, performance, and publications. Hannimari\u2019s work has been shown in many Western and Eastern European countries, the USA, Tanzania, Ghana, and China.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe Sam-Essandoh\u00a0<\/strong>is a visual artist, born in Ghana, and living in Hamburg\/Germany. His work includes serigraphy, painting, graphic design, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. He has been teaching silk screening workshops for over 20 years. Joe\u2019s work has been shown in various museums and project spaces in Germany.<\/p>\n<p>Hannimari Jokinen and Joe Sam-Essandoh have been working together on decolonialization strategies for several years. Among other topics, their projects have been about Hamburg\u2019s and Denmark\u2019s colonial past and about their notorious involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. During their residency at Skaftfell they are researching local and global colonial history and early Black presence in Iceland, connecting Westafrica, the former Danish-Caribbean Virgin Islands, Northern Europe, and the Eastern Icelandic region.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jemila MacEwan<\/strong>, b. 1985 is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in New York. Jemila was born in Scotland before emigrating to Australia with her family; this sense of displacement has informed her work as a comfortable outsider. In her recent works, MacEwan inhabits the role of various forms of destruction within the natural world, such as meteorites, volcanoes, dead animal skin and glaciers as a way to reflect on what it means to be human in the age of the Holocene Extinction.\u00a0MacEwan is a current BRIC Media Arts Fellow.\u00a0Her work has been exhibited at The Australian Consulate-General (NYC), Pioneer Works (NYC), LMCC (NYC), Victori +MO (NYC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), Governor&#8217;s Island Art Fair (NYC), The Melbourne International Arts Festival (Australia), Gertrude Street Projection Festival (Australia), and Arquetopia (Mexico).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sara Tirelli\u00a0<\/strong>(1979) is a filmmaker and visual artist whose\u00a0work lies along the border between art and cinema. Her videos and artworks have been featured in several exhibitions and festivals including Q16.Quadriennale d\u2019Arte of Rome, 12th International Architecture Biennale of Venice, Rotterdam Film Festival.\u00a0Her artistic research explores the processes of visual perception and the links between technology, culture and media. Sara is currently working on a Virtual Reality installation within the frame of the Artist in Production Residence at Bor\u00e5s Konstmuseum, Sweden.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><sup>1\u00a0<\/sup>Re-Tooling Residencies: A Closer Look at the Mobility of Art Professionals. CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2011, p.16.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-11823 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/wp-content\/smush-webp\/2025\/08\/sl_austurland-02.jpg.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"59\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 250px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 250\/59;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-14115 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/wp-content\/smush-webp\/2025\/08\/farfulgar-logo-banner.jpg.webp\" alt=\"\/www\/wp content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/farfulgar logo banner\" width=\"500\" height=\"57\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 500px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 500\/57;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3133,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_exhibition_status":0,"wds_primary_location":0,"footnotes":""},"exhibition_status":[140,159],"location":[419],"class_list":["post-10831","exhibition","type-exhibition","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","exhibition_status-past-exhibitions","exhibition_status-residency","location-skaftfell-gallery"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/10831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibition"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/10831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"exhibition_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition_status?post=10831"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skaftfell.is\/is\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=10831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}