About 10 years ago I embarked on a journey of a different kind. In the winter of 2010 I arrived with the airplane in Egilstadir in the East Fjords in Iceland. It was the beginning of december. I had lived 3 months on the northern part of Iceland between august and october, close to the open sea and wanted to experience the winter. I must add that I'm a summer person, I love the sun and the light, to move with little clothes in warm or crispy temperature and feel the air on my skin, a pure joy for me. Now I wanted to experience the opposite: winter and little or no light, the darkness. I did prepare myself mentally I thought, which is a joke looking back.
The postoffice bus took me down to Seydisfjördur, a cute little village located in a fjord, where the artist residency, Skaftfell is located. You get there via a pass which can be closed in case of snowstorms. The mountains left and right in the village are about 1000 meters high and it is a really beautiful scenery. On the way down, it was in the early evening, already pitch black and the village itself was illuminated with Christmas decoration and streetlamps at my arrival. The residency was located above a bar and exhibition space, with spacious, nordic furniture and very neat. I remember my first meeting with the director of the residency in the bar. I asked her if they had any therapy light lamps as I heard before that this could help in the dark season, but she declined and told me “We're hardcore here”. “Okay” this will be interesting, I thought.
Some facts, the daylight in the middle of winter in East Iceland is about 3,5h per day, between 10h/10h30 and 15h. If the sun shines you can get a lot of light that is reflected by the snow when there is but in the fjord the sun had left already in november and didn't came over the mountain again until february.
In that village there were all necessary institutions like a school, a post office, a bank, a pool, a gas station, sports hall, a church, supermarket and the luxury of an exhibition space, a technical museum and two bars. Contrary to the first village I had lived in there was a kind of cultural history there, due to Dieter Roth and later his sons that have brought the art scene into the Fjord. Though for some reason I wasn't inspired, certainly because things had already been done and I normally prefer more rough and blank spaces where everything can be made because it's fresh. I had two upcoming exhibitions in Akureyi, the second biggest city in Iceland, six weeks later in that residency period. As I often work in relation to my surrounding and create from there, this lack of inspiration or already too much art history was a problem from the beginning and I didn't had an exact plan what I would do. Luckily I had two knitting projects, no joke, which I finished in less that six weeks. It kept me busy and avoided my mind to spin crazy.
I remember that during the first residency I had asked my friends back home to send me old t-shirts they didn't use anymore as in the village there was only a grocery store and wool for knitting but no clothes to buy. If you wanted go shopping for clothes you had to go to the next town situated 22km away. My compensation for any kind of emotional lack at that time was shopping, not frenetically but still I loved clothes. Though after a certain time I did adapt to the fact that there wasn't the option to distract that way and it didn't matter at all anymore. You only need to be prepared to sudden weather changes, cloth up in layers and style is not existential at all.
After a week I realized that the lack of sunlight started seriously to mess up my sleeping routine. It got difficult to stand up, especially without a specific task or a job. Though I managed to go for a walk every day, either on the left or right side of the fjord to go see the horizon, which was about 20km eastwards from where I lived. I did practice Qi Gong most of the mornings in front of my south side windows looking up the mountain. Once a week a ferry from Norway entered the harbor, the Norröna, which for me it was like an event, it changed the scenery in front of my window to the north side. The café below my apartment opened twice a week if I remember right but not many people came by as everyone was busy for the Christmas preparation. An important moment up there because it keeps you busy in that dark times and brings you closer to your loved ones. And of course as it was winter people weren't as open and engaging in interactions and chats and other activities like in the summer where everyone is outside, fishing out in the sea, hiking or renovating the house, working in the garden or having barbecue parties.
I got introduced to the two other artists in the residency who lived 500/1000 meters from my house. Since we didn't lived together the exchanges were different and not as personal as they would have been under a shared roof. But it was good to know someone who was there for the same reasons as I.
After two weeks in the fjord my mood was really low, even tough I went walking every day, swimming and even to the tanning booth were I got sunburned. I had lost the notion of time and space. There was only that time space of a few hours of light and then black. Only thick and neverending black. At least that’s how I felt about it. I cried for no reason and was wondering what in the world had brought me to take that trip into the dark ... My curiosity about the effect of the night on me. I was about to cancel and to fly home. I could literally see my mood going down and not really understanding what happened. Seasonal depression and stuck in a fjord without a car, without a guy and no plan. The blackness crawled into me and felt endless, immense and terrifying, there where moments of doubts like “Will it be day again ?”. Yes, it will, with certainty but to be there with that blackness was a real test of my own limits, stretched them every day a bit more. It was of course my choice as the director from the residency said when we had a talk about it. She suggested me to divide my day in three parts and make a plan for the next week. It helped me already to talk with someone about the difficulty to work with no plan. At some point I was counting the days and making daily phone calls with my family or friends to keep connected. I couldn't really enjoy it to be stuck though looking back I was quite productive but not in the way I had planned.
I think I was too exigent with myself. One of the artist told me to relax, not being to hard on me and with my sleeping routine but I needed to see at least the light when it was there. Missing out a light period would have thrown me into double dark. I needed a few more days to let go of my plans and just accept the situation as it was and make the best out of it every new day.
My fellow artists had found different ways to cope with the situation but they would left before Christmas. I tried a bit drinking alcohol (one of their coping mechanisms along side creating of course – I am not nourishing the cliché that artists are drinker) but it had the opposite effect on me and depressed me even more. I made a crucial mistake to continue to watch Twin Peaks on my own while knitting my two pullovers as we had started to watch it during the summer residency. So my recommendation if you are going trough a rough time and you are sensitive better watch comedies or something which doesn't brings you even more down or has a negative effect on your mind. Better listen to Salsa music, brass instruments, that's what my sister later on send me or any other joyful music that makes your heart dance. Watch erotic movies, thing what I did since I didn't had a man with me at that time. Or bring a guy with you in the fjord or start to date one there if you can, that's my advice now.
The moment I was most down a storm came up and shook me loose. “It's again stormy outside. Somehow better than no storm. At least I have the impression something is going on”. Three days the snow was blowing like crazy outside, I barely couldn't walk or see the houses on the other side of the street. I remember asking the priest who drove by, to drive me ten meters to my home because I didn't see a thing and was blown over by the strength of the wind. During that time the pass was closed also because it was to dangerous to drive up there which added to the feeling of being stuck. After two or three days the milk in the supermarket was out of stock. And when we talk about snow we also talk about the risk of avalanches. The oppression there was on different levels. But as the wind blew even through my window I was occupied to find solutions to blind them.
The days ran by and my mood got better, I had connected with people, talked about my depressed feelings and they told me that for many of them it is the same which made me feel better as I understood that what had happened inside me wasn't only me but for everyone else, of course with different magnitudes. “Yes I feel, it is getting better, I'm not so spaced out anymore and getting more adventurous again. I realize I was closed, I couldn't let go of how it was before, another change, it was too much change in the lasts months. I need more time to let it sink in. I'm missing the exchange, there is little stimulation and you need to organize everything by your own. But maybe it will be good when the others leave so I can better concentre on my work”.
For Christmas I spend the evening with a family. The woman was working for the residency and had kindly invited me over. It was a bit strange as it wasn't my family but I felt welcomed and the food was delicious. I had a very interesting conversation with her husband who worked as a chef on a trawler and told me stories from the storms out of sea. It sounded very rough and only for vikings but fascinating.
The light started to increase daily already after Christmas. Up in the north this is more tangible than in middle of Europe, the energy of that light is different, brighter and you literally feel spring on its way even if it's still two months ahead. On the 1st of january I wrote into my journal “I was invited at Thorunn yesterday and Tumi and Raudar as well as Christof Büchel and his partner and child where there for the evening. It was good to be amongst others, it helped against the isolation”. People up in the north aren’t in general as touchy as French, (there are of course all kinds of people) Italians, Spanish or Southamerican people. They naturally keep more distance and I guess this was also another factor which was hard to experience for me living in France where you normally greet with two kisses on the cheeks. “When you're with others and talk to them, everything is different suddenly. It makes a big difference”. At the traditional new years bond fire I threw some souvenir I needed to get rid of into the fire and I felt relieved.
In the last part of the residency time another couple of artists arrived, from Poland and Denmark and they seemed used to the lack of light. The polish artist said that he anyway has a more depressed and melancholic temper and for this reason didn't feel much difference with his normal state which made me understand that as a sunflower I just broke in less than a month.
As I started packing, rolling up my paintings, the objects I had created, organizing all I had done in those six weeks I sat in front of it, the darkness outside with me and realized that that was the work. The blackness was like a screen where everything could be projected, like in a theater or a cinema. This moment was very important. I felt very quiet, observed all the different elements, the thoughts I had thought, the place I had been, the person I was and had become. It is when I let go that I felt most at ease, finally.
When I left the fjord to set up my exhibitions in Akureyri my body already relaxed and stretched when I was out of it and could see the horizon again. I grew up between the Black Forest and the Voges and could always see far and constraint situations make me feel oppressed, caught and helpless. To feel space around and in front of me is calming my nervous system. Finally that mountain was out of my sight and I could relax my eyes.
Arrived in Akureyri my friend and gallery owner let me sit in front their therapy lamp and I could immediately feel how my brain started to work faster than all those weeks before. I couldn't really believe it but it was a fact. I realized that my complete biorhythm had slowed down, all the organs where working slower, like in hibernation. This explained of course also the low mood and feeling like having a cloud over the head as well as my slow thinking. Pálina, the gallery owner told me something I feel the same now when it is winter “I like that I am closer to myself and with me, to have time to sort out and to hibernate”. Everyone reacts different to the lack of light and develops survival strategies and you realize what and who really matters for you. All the superficial things or relationships will naturally disappear and you get to the essence. One of the most important things in my eyes is to connect with people, share your thoughts and feelings about the situation and don't be ashamed for anything coming up. Your joy, your fear, your anger, your love. It's difficult and it's harder than you thought it would be but you will be stronger afterwards because you will have learned to use your own resources, be more creative, more humble and more compassionate. Human.