Testing Ground Expedition 2021 /
Into the uninhabitable
Into the uninhabitable is a four-day walking symposium in the highlands of south Iceland focusing on our engagement with our environment. The symposium is part of Testing Ground, an exploratory process that precedes the first South Iceland Biennale that will be launched in 2022.
The collective walking tour is a forum that appeals to creative and critical minds in the fields of art, environment and humanities. Discussion platforms will be formed daily, orchestrated through the lens of care. The tour will traverse the urban and rural in the vicinity of the volcano Hekla and into the highlands during a four day journey by bus and by foot, staying at campsites on the way. Here, all is jumbled together: farm landscapes, hydroelectric operations, tourist sites, and a wilderness undergoing continual rebirth and destruction. We’ll consider the interplay of human beings and nature, humans within nature.
The South Iceland Biennale is an experiment in applying care to society, the environment, and the uncertainty that now confronts humanity. The theme of the Testing ground 2021 is Care in Uncertain Times. In recent years the concept of care has been gaining attention across fields and disciplines, within the natural and social sciences, and among artists, architects and designers. The urgency for the exploration of care seems to be a response to the relational models we humans have developed in the 20th century. Models one could argue were largely developed through concepts of utilization and commercialisation of environments for human consumption. In the context of this critique the concept of care has been widely discussed and written about as a means to shift the perspective towards exploring other modes of developing relations with environments.
“Thinking with care invites us to question unilateral relationalities and exclusionary bifurcations of living, doings, and agencies. It brings us to thinking from the perspective of the maintenance of a many-sided web of relations involved in the very possibility of ecosystem services rather than only of benefits to humans.” - Soil Times: The Pace of Ecological Care, María Puig de la Bellacasa
Testing Grounds programme is guided by three curators and centres on three research themes that raise central questions about human intervention in the natural world and in the future. Ósk, Sigrún, and Garðar, the curators of SIB, began collaborating in summer 2020, in the middle of a pandemic. Their motive was the window that had opened in the wake of the pandemic. They each explore different themes in the Testing Ground programme: Ósk probes the nomadic landscape that undergoes continual rebirth and destruction. Garðar leads cross-disciplinary dialogue among the sciences, humanities, and arts reflecting on methods of Mitigation and Adaptation, Sigrún questions modes of urbanization and the transformation of rural territories.
Stalker Osservatorio Nomade (ON) will join the Testing Ground Expedition, Into the uninhabitable. Stalker is a research collective comprising architects, artists, activists, and scholars who perform experiments and organize actions to recreate and redefine the potential and elasticity of space.
Stalker has developed a methodology of urban research using public walks to create a “collective imaginary” of a place. Collective walking becomes a tool and a collective communication device, opening up the potential to remap, reactuate, and even transform.
For enquiries send mail to:
osk@this.is
sigrunbirgisdottir@gmail.com
eyjolfsson@eyjolfsson.com
Cost: 40.000 kr.
Included in cost:
Guided tours, lectures, discussion platforms and salon evenings.
Bus journeys and return trip to Reykjvaík.
Campsite fee.
Breakfast, lunch and dinners.
We have collective meals in large tents on campsite. Participants bring their own tents and sleeping bags. An additional fee is required if staying in mountain cabins. Outdoor clothing and good walking boots are necessary as well as clothes that can withstand rain and wind in the changeable weather in Iceland.
Application:
Limited places are on offer. Please send a PDF with a CV and a sample Portfolio accompanied with a short statement of expression of interest (max. 100 words).
Program:
18th August / Wednesday
The urban threshold.
We cast our eyes on the urban rural relations, we explore the past with an eye on the future.
08:00
Departure BSÍ (BSÍ Bus Terminal Reykjavík)
We visit the farm Stóri- Klofi, which will be a host of the SIB 2022, traverse a landscape of historical interest, visit a hypothetical farm of settlement times, pass through territory of energy production, areas of future speculation and head off into the highlands to the first campsite at Áfangagil.
Dinner at campsite and salon evening.
Discussion forum led by Sigrún Birgisdóttir and Garðar Eyjólfsson with invited guests.
Maria Kraft Architect and Director Circolo Scandinavo moderator
19th August / Thursday
Liminal space.
Journeying the untamed into nothingness.
10:00
Departure on foot, walking exhorts.
Walking expeditions will journey across volcanic landscapes, deserts and lava fields, spaces of nothingness.
Arrival at Landmannahellir campsite.
Dinner at Landmannahellir campsite and salon evening.
Discussion forum led by Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir with Lorenzo Romito and Giulia Fiocca from Stalker.
Maria Kraft Architect and Director Circolo Scandinavo moderator.
20th August / Friday
Into the highlands
Walking exhorts. The rhyolite mountains and the full spectrum of colours.
09:00
Departure on foot, hiking and collective explorations.
Explorations and hiking in the rhyolite volcanic landscapes of Fjallabak Nature Reserve, crossing the border of the Torfajökull caldera arriving at Landmannalaugar campsite and the geothermal springs. Bathing.
Bus drive to Landmannahellir.
Final dinner.
21 August / Saturday
Return
Returning into the urban fold.
10:00
Departure by bus.
Arrival at Stóri - Klofi. Collective walking. Exploring a transforming farm mutating in tandem with different forces at play in society and the ongoing tension between nature and humans.
18:00
Return to Reykjavík
Note: any changes to the programme will be updated on the website.