IAC:
Góðan daginn allir. Viltu segja okkur aðeins um dvölina?
Hvernig hafði umhverfið þar á Norðurlandi áhrif á listina þína?
Og geturðu sagt frá dæmigerðum degi?
Og vinsamlegast kynntu þig og list þína.
Emma Geiger:
Okay, that’s a lot of questions.
My name is Emma Geiger, and I’m an artist in a few different forms. I make music, and at the [NES] residency I was focusing on some film and photography work I was doing, as well as a little bit of natural dyeing and knitting. So kind of all over the place.
How did I hear about the residency? I think I can’t quite remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure a friend of mine from North Carolina had been to this residency a couple of years ago, and she’s a writer. She was at the space, there’s like a library where the writers go. She came back just so inspired and had had an amazing time. So I looked into it.
And I’d also at the same time been wanting to spend some time in Iceland because I have some Icelandic ancestry. So this seemed like an opportunity to spend an extended period there and work on this project that I’ve started that is kind of about my building my connection with Iceland. Having not had a lot of, like I didn’t learn much about it from my family or from my grandparents. I just knew that it’s my great-great-grandparents who are from there. So this connection a few generations back that I wanted to explore.
Did I hit all of the questions?
IAC:
I know, that was a lot thrown at you at one shot, I apologize.
So I guess specifically, how did the environment impact your artwork? And can you just take us through a typical day at the residency?
Emma:
The environment was very unique. You’re kind of between the ocean and the mountain there. Þetta er eins og nes, mjög tilfinning af því að vera umlukin. And yeah, there’s farmland around. I’m not sure of the population of Skagaströnd, but it’s pretty small.
So I think the environment felt very easy to really sink into that place and be not distracted by like, oh, I could go here, I could go there. You’re just there. I found that really inspiring.
I was also working with some materials like seaweed and plants from the area and incorporating those both through dyeing and then printing on 16 millimeter film. It’s called phytograms, but I can explain more about that later. Getting to work with the local materials and just be in a place that felt very cocooned, contained, inspiring.
IAC:
Your artistic development: what have you worked on? Have you collaborated with other artists there? And what were some of the difficulties that you may have encountered?
Emma:
I was working on, like I mentioned, this natural dyeing with some fabric I’d brought. It actually wasn’t what I planned on doing, but once I got there, I felt very inspired to do that. So I found some, yeah, lupin and lichen and what else did I use? Rhubarb root. And some iron from rusty metal laying around. I worked on dyeing some fabric that I’m going to make a quilt with.
I didn’t collaborate with other artists explicitly, but there was just an atmosphere of like everyone’s curious because it’s an open studio. Everyone’s curious about what everyone else is working on. So there’s a lot of idea exchange and people getting excited about other people’s work. I’m sure there was some idea cross-pollination going on.
IAC:
Do you feel that it might have been the same for the writers or a little bit different given the visual artist process versus someone just on the laptop or in a notebook?
Emma:
Yeah, I think sometimes they would come over to the studio just to see what was going on. And I mean, I read a lot of—there was a writer there who I read a lot of her work and was telling her, wow, yeah, this is inspiring me so much. So even if they’re kind of doing their own thing, there are ways to collaborate.
IAC:
How has the community influenced your work? Thinking as an artist, have you met other local artists outside the residency that might be there? And were there other artists participating at the residency as well from the local municipality? Is there any cross-pollination there?
Emma:
There weren’t any Icelandic artists at the residency. Mostly US-based, Canadian, UK-based, Germany. I think that covers everyone.
I went to the Sauðárkróks þjóðlagahátíð the first weekend that I was at NES. I took a bus out there and I met other musicians and ended up meeting a resident of Skagaströnd, an Icelandic person, who then gave me a ride back. We established a friendship and I ended up interviewing him for my project. So that was a neat connection with a local.
People in Skagaströnd are very interested in all the artists. At first I wasn’t sure what that dynamic would be like, but it was really positive.
IAC:
Can you name an inspiring moment while you were there? And what advice would you have for artists that want to apply to this residency?
Emma:
Yeah, an inspiring moment. What comes to mind are some experiences in nature. There’s a kayak rental place in town and I went out solo kayaking in the evening. It was still quite light out. I saw jellyfish and starfish and all the terns. It was neat to look back and see the town from the water and have that perspective shift.
Also hiking up the mountain was very inspiring.
Advice: explore the town and be open to meeting local people. And ekki vera feimin að reyna að tala íslensku. I tried a little, but it’s so hard. Also if you have the opportunity to explore outside Skagaströnd, take one or two trips. Maybe not every weekend, but yeah, explore a little outside. That’s really nice too.
IAC:
Excellent. How do people find your work, your visual art and music?
Emma:
I have a website. It’s emmageiger.com. It’s up right now, but I’m also working on redoing that. I’m also on Instagram, emmageiger.
And there’s a new Icelandic online media publication that’s going to have an interview and an article about my project about my family in Iceland. It’s called—I need to double check—but TV One Magazine. I can send you the link for it.
Emma’s interview from TV1.is
From tv1.is