29.Twenty ninth resident, for two months, from the 5th of September until the 1rst of November 2017, Þorvaldur S. Helgason
Þorvaldur S. Helgason was born in Copenhagen in 1991.
He is a young poet and theater artist from Reykjavík.
Þorvaldur studied Theatre and Performance Making at the Iceland Academy if the Arts, graduating in 2015,
and is currently studying for a master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Iceland.
Starting in 2011-2012 as an actor in two productions of the Reykjavik Student Theater: (The importance of being earnest - director : Þorsteinn Bachmann, and Rof – director : Ragnheiður Skúladóttir,
he wrote between 2012-2014 two plays produced and shown by Ungleikur at the Reykjavík National Theatre : Liljurós and Hirð.
In 2014, he took part in two « immersive performances » : Mirror Fragments with the performance group Spegilbrot, and The Clockwork of Life: the result of an artistic research project on the human heart.
Then, in between: ATSJOO!, a performance directed by Helga Arnalds which was a collaboration between students of the Iceland Academy of the Arts
and students from European theatre schools via the Nordplus network performed at the children‘s theatre festival Sumin in Viljandi, (Estonia).
In 2016, he created, along with his brother the composer Rögnvaldur Konráð Helgason, the musical poem Impressions of Breiðholt, performed at Gerðuberg Culture Center.
He wrote the poetry book Dreams on a clothesline, published by Partus in Reykjavík as part of their Emerging Poets series.
At the Oslo National Theatre, he took part in an internship with director Þorleifur Örn Arnarsson, in his production Vildanden En Folkefiende for the 2016 Ibsen Festival.
Þorvaldur created (in 2016 as well!), with the performance group Sviðsverkur a performative installation : Sælir eru einfaldir based on the novel Seven Days Darkness by Gunnar Gunnarsson.
It was premiered at Skriðuklaustur in July 2016. And finally… in_terror : a performative soundpiece created with the sound art duo VALD, premiered in Mengi in December 2016.
This active and creative young man came to HÖFN to work on his graduation project, in its current form a poetry manuscript under the title : Gangverk
and a novella that explores the alternative history of an Iceland which was abandoned in the 19th century.
He wished, while at HÖFN, to «expand (his) professional and personal network to places beyond Iceland and obtain some experience of artistic communities outside from (his) home country ».
Þorvaldur had studied a bit of French at school in Iceland and hoped to deepen his understanding of French langage:
he took a course at the Alliance française in Marseilles as well as immersing himself for two months in daily French life.
As usual, HÖFN did its best, in various ways, to help him fulfill such hopes and needs:
several walking/driving trips in our neighbourhoods, to the center of Marseilles and its cultural places, to the extreme south of Marseilles,
some invitations to theater performances, a visit to the Art school of Aix en Provence...
Dominique Poulain, HÖFN coordinator translated Dreams on a clothesline (Icelandic Title: Draumar á þvottasnúru - French title: Rêves sur un fil à linge) in French.
HÖFN will try and see whether we could publish out of this work a little bilingual edition. In any cases, some of Þorvaldur's poems and their translations (in English and/or French) will appear soon enough on this page!
The 20th of December 2017, Þorvaldur S. Helgason sent a text to us : "In Marseille" , as an "offering" to our association HÖFN. His text was in English (and not in Icelandic)
Dominique Poulain, HÖFN coordinator, translated it in French...
If you want to discover Þorvaldur's text, in English, or its translation in French, click on one of thes links hereinbelow:
files/InMarseille.pdf files/AMarseille.pdf
Photos Dominique Poulain
... Here 4 poems/prose text from Þorvaldur S. Helgason's poetry collection: Draumar á þvottasnúru,
that Dominique Poulain translated in French under the title: Rêves sur un fil à linge.
Þorvaldur had translated them in English as well (under the title Dreams on a clothesline), and selected these 4 poems/prose text to appear on this page:
Photos Dominique Poulain (Clotheslines in the Cité saint-Louis - Hôtel du Nord walk during the European Heritage Days 2017): by some strange coincidence, as Dominique Poulain was discovering Þorvaldur's poetry collection Draumar á þvottasnúru (Dreams on a clothesline) and decided to translate it in French, she was also (among others) creating an HÔTEL DU NORD walk which put the spotlight on the Cité Saint-Louis, in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille. She discovered, much to her surprise and delight, in this village-like district surrounded with huge estates, many clotheslines throughout the lanes that all shared in the neighbourhood. They were going to be widely used the 17th of September 2017, during the European Heritage Days, bearing and conveying the memory of the past life of the district and/or symbols of the specific areas the walkers went through...
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28. Twenty eighth resident, for three weeks, from the 5th until the 25th of July 2017: Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir
Margrét Elísabet (called most often Magga -pronounce Maka!) has been three times at HÖFN as a resident.
She actually twice spent two months at HÖFN, (in 2011 and 2012), writing there part of her thesis.
(See The Residents Leave a Trail: tenth and twelfth resident, in 2011, and 2012)
Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1965.
She says about herself that she has always been writing, and very young started dreaming she would become a journalist...
In 1987, she indeed worked for several newspapers and magazines, and for the National Radio in Iceland as well, mainly focusing on art and culture.
In 2002, she was a temporary lecturer and tutor at the Art Academy of Iceland and the University of Iceland.
That same year, she founded Lorna, an association for electronic art, working also as an art critic and a curator.
She defended her thesis in "esthétique et science de l’art" (Université de Paris 1) about visual and digital arts in Iceland in 2013.
(Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir speaks and writes perfectly in French!))
She is associate professor at the University of Akureyr since 2015.
Margrét Elísabet came this time to Höfn to work on a book, a biographical one, about the life and work of the Icelandic video artist Steina Vasulka.
She found time to get out of the residence, now and then (!), in order to swim in the Mediterranean sea (scorching heat that summer in Marseilles and its surroundings!),
but also to discover museums and galeries (that did not yet exist in Marseilles in 2012),
meet some French artists, get to one or two among many art festivals going on in July in Marseilles and its surroundings, and see few exhibitions...
She also offered about 15 guests a presentation of her work and knowledge about the artist Steina Vasulka, the 18th of July: a beautiful evening on our good old terrace,
a most used scenery for HÖFN intimist, friendly and unformal but stimulating events...
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26 and 27. Twenty sixth and twenty seventh residents, for a bit more than 3 weeks, from the 3rd until the 29th of May 2017: Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir and her husband Þórólfur H. Hafstað
HÖFN received Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir and her husband, Þórólfur H. Hafstað, a geologist at ÍSOR (Iceland Geo Survey in Reykjavík), who joined her at HÖFN from the 10th of May.
Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir, born in 1952, is Icelandic, to-day a senior lecturer/associate professor at University of Iceland, School of Education.
Her research focus has been on distance and blended learning in teacher education and development of rural upper secondary schools and their networking online.
She has specialized in Cultural-Historical and Activity Theory approach and used it for example to shed light on interconnections between professional development of teachers and systemic development in schools and teacher education programmes.
She has also used the sociological theories of Basil Bernstein in her research for analysing educational policy and practices.
In 1974, Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir studied French and sociology at the Université des Sciences Humaines in Strasbourg (and for several years used to be a guide during the summer, mostly with… French tourists visiting Iceland).
Getting her diploma in pedagogy for teaching in secondary schools from the University of Iceland in 1990, she worked as a teacher in Icelandic language and litterature at Hamrahlíð College, in Reykjavík until 1999.
She holds a Ph.D. in pedagogy, (University of Iceland) since 2010, and has been from 2014 until now a programme coordinator in pedagogy for upper secondary and university teachers in University of Iceland, School of Education.
Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir got a sabbatical semester in the spring term 2017.
She wished to use her residency at HÖFN to work on research articles for publication in international journals of education,
mainly working on a paper that had been accepted for presentation at the conference of ISCAR (International Society for Cultural-historical Activity Research)in Quebec in August with the title:
Networking for the Benefit of Education in the Icelandic Countryside. Formation and development of a network of upper secondary schools in Iceland.
There were other reasons that led her to apply for a residency at HÖFN, in Marseilles, for instance, as she wrote us: refresh my French speaking, adding:
After entering the university, I have been writing mainly in English (beside Icelandic)and have used my sabbatical semester to stay in England (2006) and Australia (2012).
However, I have also collaborated with Scandinavians. I thought it might be interesting to widen the horizon this time and get perhaps some connections and insight in educational research in France.
Our HÖFN association tried and helped Þuriður to meet a secondary school teacher, and a teacher trainer (in visual arts), Lénaïg Jarlégan -our Association President as well, by the way - and Sarah Lallemand
much commited and experienced women in Marseilles that could precisely give her a very concrete insight in educational research in France…
as much as it opened as many windows onto our district, onto Marseilles and its surroundings as possible
to allow her AND her husband Þórólfur H. Hafstað to better understand this huge town and harbour and some of the many peculiar and startling landscapes around...
For instance, HÖFN organised, by car, with many stops on the way, two little trips, specially dedicated to "our" geologist Þórólfur H. Hafstað, from Marseilles to CAMARGUE and, later on, from Marseilles the VERDON area..
As Þuríður Jóhannsdóttir and Þórólfur H. Hafstað were leaving us, Þórólfur pulled out from his trouser pocket 2 little stones:
he had found one of them in Hafnarfjörður, (near Reykjavík in Iceland), the other, few days before, in... Camargue. (You, Readers, try and guess which was picked where!)
Þórólfur pointed out that the two stones were roughly the same size, that they could more or less interlock with one another, and that finally they perfectly completed one another...
Here below, you can see these two stones, "staged" on one of the tables on our good old terrace!!
Photos Dominique Poulain
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25. Twenty fith resident, for one month and a week, from the 6th of January until the 23rd of February 2017: Björk Þorgrímsdóttir
Björk Þorgrímsdóttir is an Icelandic poet, born in 1984.
She prefers the word poet (iskáld in Icelandic) rather than the word writer (rithöfundur in Icelandic)
because poet (skáld) entails "a notion which gives her much more freedom to connect to the world", at least this is what she deeply feels.
She graduated from the University of Iceland where she studied Philosophy and Literature.
In her bachelor degree she wrote about the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein and Laotse, a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Taoism,
and was comparing two of their books: "Both of them are speaking about language and ethics
and they both try to transcend the words at the same time that they are using them to say something important and meaningful", says Björk.
In 2014 she graduated with a masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iceland. She wrote a play as her graduation project.
Björk has so far published two books;
Bananasól (2014) –" a story based on matters of the heart", (Björk's own words).
Neindarkennd (2015) – a poetry book concerned with being in language (Björk's own words).
Björk is indeed much interested in language and has done some happenings around words and how they come to us.
She has published her poems in Icelandic magazines and books alongside other poets.
In 2014 she participated in a symposium featuring female poets from Greenland, Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland;
it was called Konur á ystu nöf (Women on the edge?) and combined discussions about writing as a woman as well as poetry readings..
She applied to go abroad to work so that she could fully dive into her project
"without those interruptions and obligations that we all have to submit to when living in our place of birth".
She likes to meet new people and expand her horizon and Höfn seemed like a good place to do that.
She has been travelling around the world in the past years and was travelling last year a lot in France.
The fact that Marseille is a harbour city influenced her decision to go there
because it‘s important for her "to have a possibility of an escape".
Höfn has got a view over the sea "so she can depart whenever she wants" but her plan "is of course to stay here and work".
She thinks "new environment gives you freedom from obligation
as well as an entrance to new ideas, people and surroundings that can inspire something totally unexpected".
Her experience in France is that "the atmosphere is very relaxing (apart from Paris)'
and her theory is that "it‘s somehow connected with socialism". She admits that she could be wrong.
Because of family issues, Björk had to leave HÖFN, and Marseilles the 23rd of February 2017,
about two weeks before the scheduled date.
We were very sorry about it, but of course this is ALSO an integral part of the concept of our HÖFN residence:
artists and reseach workers, (ALL writing people actually) have a free hand, as much as we can manage it in the HÖFN organization, to reconsider,
following their needs, the dates of their residency at HÖFN, at any time...
You can find HERE some "illustrated adventures" that Björk experienced here and there, in Marseilles, durant her stay...