Strand 1: Gathering Material (Jan – Dec 2019)
Strand managers: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Kristinn Schram.
Strand team: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Kristinn Schram, María Dalberg, Aðalheiður Alice Eyvör Pálsdóttir.
To research existing documentation of polar bear visits to Iceland from the 19th Century until today. According to statistics, 218 polar bears arrived in Iceland in the 19th Century alone (Petersen, 2010:22). There are 50 recorded visits in the districts of Húnavatnssýsla and Skagafjörður since 890 AD, of which 39 are within the period proposed for this research (Petersen, 2010). The research conducted by research assistant María Dalberg and Aðalheiður Alice Eyvör Pálsdóttir and supervised by Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson and Kristinn Schram, will examine and analyse material from various sources including manuscripts at the Icelandic National Library. Other sources will include the Sagas, 19th and 20th century collections of folktales and legends, surveys, news reports, photography, film and television. The research will also involve searches in public digital archives, such as sarpur.is, leitir.is and timarit.is. Parallel to the above, existing scientific data mainly from the Institute of Experimental Pathology, UoI, Keldur will be gathered. The project will draw on scientific writing and research in respect of each polar bear, tabling information relating to their biological status, their diet and deduced places of origin, using existing and new analysis from carcasses and associated reports.
Strand 2: Analysis and Art Methodology (Jan – July 2020)
Strand managers: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson.
Strand team: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Kristinn Schram, María Dalberg.
Bryndís H. Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, together with María Dalberg, will conduct comparative analysis of materials and information gathered in strand #1. Further work on samples from tooth and other remains will enhance and extend existing readings. Scanning of samples through Microscopic and SEM technology will be applied for image resolution and scaling. Image files of ‘new’ and/or existing scans will be tested for image manipulation potential, in preparation for large scale artworks. In this and other works for this project we will build on the effects (as evidenced in earlier projects by S/W) of shifts in scale on the imagination and perceptions of audiences, whilst focusing attention and engagement on individual and specific nexuses.
Strand 3: Fieldwork, Interviews and Imaging (Jan – Dec 2020)
Strand managers: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Kristinn Schram.
Strand team: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Kristinn Schram, MA student #2.
This period will require site visits to gather new material in Iceland and in the USA. Individuals with first and second hand experiences of polar bear encounters in Iceland will be interviewed. Fieldwork will be conducted for these interviews by Snæbjörnsdóttir and Wilson and the research assistant/MA student in Folkloristics/Ethnology under the supervision of Schram. Visual discourse analysis and the collection of data through ethnographic field methods will be applied to some parts of these visits. For these site visits Snæbjörnsdóttir and Wilson will also incorporate surveys using field photography, drawing and prints from the recorded polar bear arrival sites on Iceland’s coast. The visual material will focus on details from the landscape and environment of each site with regard to features identified in the reports and stories pertaining to the ‘visitations’/locations. During the latter half of this period the focus will be on the final preparations for the solo exhibition at Anchorage Museum in October 2020 which will consist of artworks made during Snæbjörnsdóttir and Wilson during their PolarLab residency with the Museum from 2016 until 2020.
Strand 4: Art Production & the Archive (Nov 2020- Sept 2021)
Strand managers: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir.
Strand team: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir, Kristinn Schram, Katla Kjartansdóttir, MA student #3.
Bryndís H. Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson will engage in further production and development of material from the research conducted in strands #1- #3. They will be supported by an MA student curator and also work with Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir and with research assistant Katla Kjartansdóttir on the analysis of interview data, categorising this in accordance with the project’s established system. At this point the focus is on material relating to the development of work for the solo-exhibition at Akureyri Art Museum. This will include the editing and design of the project’s archive as a parallel installation in dialogue with the artwork. The “archive, its representation, and its commentary have, through the consolidation between museum, artist and academic research, become one object, aligned and supported by scientific data and research outcomes” (Sigurjónsdóttir, 2018). Without attempting to second guess at this stage the precise nature of the artworks, it can be said that they will comprise a synthesis of meticulously sourced information in the form of multimedia installations.
Strand 5: Publication & Conference (June – Dec 2021)
Strand managers: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson.
Strand team: Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir, Mark Wilson, Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir, Kristinn Schram, Katla Kjartansdóttir, MA student #3.
During this stage there will be preparations for the planned publication and the international conference. The publication is conceived in line with other Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson publications, to embrace and encapsulate the overall project – to be a receptacle for all the research and strategic documentation of the multiple and varied outputs. Negotiations regarding the writing for the publication will have taken place during the course of the project and will include the co-proposers and the members of the peer review committee, together with invited professionals from the arts and humanities. The international conference, supported by research assistant Kjartansdóttir and an MA student in Fine Art, will be a collaboration between the Iceland University of the Arts and the University of Iceland. The speakers will include the co-proposers Schram and Sigurjónsdóttir together with three external international practitioners.