Day 16

June 25, 2018

11:17 PM Iceland Time

Today I started my work placement with the Kopovogur municipality. They are going to have me work at the “Culture houses”. The cultural houses consist of a natural history museum, art museum, library, concert hall and a thermal pool! I got a bit of a tour at first, and then waited in the art museum to find out what I will be doing for the next three weeks. Apparently, the lady who was going to coordinate my volunteering was sick, so they didn’t have much for me to do. To pass the time, they let me look at the art exhibition where I had the whole museum to myself! It was a really neat exhibit all dedicated to a female Icelandic artist; Gerður Helgadottir. She was primarily a sculptor who used various mediums, but her primary focus was with stone and iron work. There were a few of her drawings on display as well. Her work reminded me a lot of Picasso and Alexander Calder’s work! She accomplished a lot in her short lifetime, and created many beautiful works inspired by her studies in Florence, Paris and Egypt.

After I looked at the exhibit, I waited around for a little bit, because the art director was going to have me sit in a meeting with a youth group doing some community art projects. The youth group is called Endur Hugsa. Their vision is to re-think environmentalism through art, and performance. I was under the impression that I am going to be working with them on some community events they will be putting together. I am excited to collaborate with them- they may have me implement some art therapy type activities since one of the themes they have been discussing is environmental anxiety and the importance of self-care. The projects they have been doing are really neat, you should check their website out! https://www.endurhugsa.com/home

After the meeting they invited me over to their student art studio. They were very sweet and funny! All of them are artist who have completed some art school. It is neat to be able to hangout and collaborate with some fellow artists. Since it has been cold and rainy, they made vegan sugar cookies, hot chocolate and were playing Christmas music! Haha We talked for a bit, and then I headed out so they could continue their work.

I walked around a bit to get an idea of what surrounds the culture houses, and then made my way to the thermal pools. I want to try to go to as many different thermal pools while here in the Reyjkavik area. Sundlaugin í Kópavogi is the name of the one I went to today, and it was pretty nice, and had some slides there as well. After relaxing, I took the bus back into town.

The art museum said that they didn’t have much for me to do tomorrow, and that the lady who was supposed to be there today should return on Wednesday. They told me to take tomorrow off and wait to hear back from them. So, I decided to go ahead and be a tourist. I don’t think I am going to be going to Southern Iceland during our tour during the last week of this trip, so I will be going to check out a few places there tomorrow. 

After I got home, Skarpi’s son came by and we had dinner together while watching some world cup matches. It has been really nice getting to know them better, and talk about their family dynamic, some of their traditions and values. One thing that I have found is that many Icelanders think that Americans don’t hold the family unit to be something very important and that people don’t keep in touch with their families very often. That is true in a lot of cases, but fortunately it isn’t for my family! I was always taught, and I firmly believe that family is everything. They were very happy to know that me and family hold the same values. They didn’t have many traditions per-say, they said that their main family tradition is just to always spend time with each other, and that they often eat certain foods during the holidays.

Though I already believed it, I feel more and more strongly that family truly is everything. Coming to Iceland to meet and find even more family has been a beautiful experience, and there is more to come! Anyways I better get some sleep, I have a big day tomorrow! Stay tuned!