In the second largest city of Iceland recently opened an exhibition of global interest. The exhibition in Akureyri forms the starting point of a dynamic project concentrating on Turkey, Israel, Switzerland and Iceland – four countries on the margin of the European Union. For each of the four exhibitions, artists from these countries are invited to take on issues of cultural or national identity, home or homesickness. The exhibition will be put together anew for each of the subsequent locations, thus setting a new focus each time.

The artists participating in this exhibition are not functioning as representatives of their respective countries, and for them it is not forcibly a question of describing the situation in their home countries. In fact, the seemingly antiquated or anachronistic questioning of ‘home’ and the very fact that most of the participating artists have long since left their native countries combine to produce a productive tension.

What is home? We asked the Icelandic artist Haraldur Jónsson. He was born in 1961 as the son of Icelandic parents in Helsinki and has lived — with interruptions — in Reykjavík since he was three years old. “The term 'home' is a problematic term”, he answered. “It's not exactly a particular place or country but an emotional and a mental space. It's where you feel a sense of belonging without having any actual documents or a map to prove it. Or even a common language.” And he went on: ”I think Icelanders are particularly vulnerable to homesickness. They do stick to this island but without any obvious passion or reason. They tend to have a pathetic, even a pathological relation to it. There is a certain kind of obsessive and even incestuous mentality which characterises the Icelandic version of homesickness. That's the Icelandic syndrome.”
Haraldur is not a formalist. He does not allow himself to be tied to one visual language. He draws and writes. He performs acts and creates photo series and installations. He initiates space-oriented situations spiked with associations that generate sensations within the viewer. His aim is to create a physical rapport via perception on the one hand and via interpretation on the other. But this is never undertaken as a physical frontal attack; it takes place discreetly and subtly. His site-specific installation at the Akureyri Art Museum, Crumbled Darkness, confronts the viewer with a lava field of paper, a monstrous form of void.

The ‘syndrome” Haraldur is describing might also count for Switzerland, the country were the term ‘homesickness’ or ‘nostalgia’ was born in the end of the 17th century (created by the Basel doctor Johannes Hofer). It is probably just a funny coincidence that the only artist who still lives in her native country is Chantal Michel from Switzerland. “Home is where I’m unattainable”, she said. “Everyone’s marked by his or her origins, but the ‘history of Switzerland’ – for me is an abstract term to which I have no rapport.” Born in 1968 in Bern, Chantal Michel stages herself in her photography, videos and performances. She uses her own body, mostly disguised or transformed, in order to reveal unconscious behaviour patterns. She often does this in confrontation to places unknown to her. In the photo series During the Whole Time… she can be seen acting in living quarters that appear lived-in yet are clearly deserted. Home as a place of protective familiarity becomes the stage for childlike-surreal play.

The Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner currently lives with his family in New York and will move soon to Berlin. Does he feel ‘homesick’? “Sure I feel homesick”, he answered, “maybe a bit more friends-sick because I miss my good friends more than anything. Whenever I go back to Israel I realise that its no longer my home and that – strangely enough – I don’t feel at home anywhere. (…) Israel is a political and cultural island in the Middle East. And: you can not leave the country by car – only by boat or by plane. That qualifies it as an island for me.”

Born in 1969 in Ramat-Gan, Guy Ben-Ner is one of Israel’s best-known contemporary artists. In 1996 he graduated in art in Tel Aviv before continuing his studies at Columbia University in New York. His videos frequently refer to different genres of film and television. For his Tree House Kit, which he presented at the 2005 Venice Biennale, he uses a school instruction film. In his video works he mostly plays the protagonist himself, although the rest of his family is also often involved. Berkeley’s Island is an adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The desert island consists of a pile of sand and an iconic palm tree stuck in the middle of Ben-Ner’s kitchen. In his video Guy Ben-Ner tackles the opposition between a solipsistic consciousness, that believes that all the world depends on personal perception, and an existential consciousness such as Sartre’s , that believes our sense of self derives from the gaze of the Other.

If someone is asking Nevin Aladag for her national and cultural identity she would answer that she is a German with Turkish background. She was born in Van, Turkey, in 1972 but has lived in Germany since she was two years old. Following the success of her video The Tezcan Family (2001), with Voice Over (2006) she once again turns her attention to young people of Turkish origin in Germany: The fourteen-year-old Turks, who probably grew up in Germany and were socialized here, sing traditional elegies from their ancestors’ homeland. The ardently recited words tell of the loss of the homeland, of eviction, of craving and of non-reciprocated love. A semantic rift immediately opens between what is shown and what is heard, between the streetwise kids in rapper gear and the wise and antiquated.

“From my point of view”, Nevin Aladag states, “we build what we could call cultural identity every day anew. We are mostly exposed to a range of very different cultural influences; it’s the evaluation of this potential that’s interesting. (…) I don’t think that a lack of perspectives necessarily has to lead people back to their own roots; it primarily leads to people being in search of something.” “I think the whole idea of a home country is a myth”, Katrín Sigurdardottir replies. “It is the myth that drives nationalism, the narrative that appeals to the most innate and sentimental parts of us. The place that you belong to and that belongs to you; one of inclusion and exclusion. In very basic language, it’s been used to fuck systematically with the psyche of millions of people through the centuries. You ask why I think this. I think this from having lived in two places my whole adult life and having had multiple opportunities to try out these ideals on my own life.” Katrín Sigurðardóttir, born in Iceland 1967, currently lives in New York. The artist works with the perception of space, playing with the memories that her sculptures and installations generate within the viewer. She frequently creates miniatures that look like models or toys, such as in the chandelier, which she is showing at this exhibition. The miniatures make a theme out of an unbridgeable distance that is both physical and historical, dealing with personal memories and historical associations.

The Icelandic/Spanish couple Ólafur Árni Ólafsson (born in Reykjavik in 1973) and Libia Pérez de Siles de Castro (born in Madrid in 1971) have been working together since 1996 in socio-political fields of tension. Their installations often react to specific places, deliberately involving the visitor or passer-by. For their sound installation Living Room Reading - The Episode of Hrut and Mord Fiddel they confront an asylum seeker from Afghanistan in Iceland with one of the fundaments of its cultural history, namely Njál´s Saga written in the 13th century.

Looking at the theme of ‘homesickness’ may begin within the subjective realm of personal experience, opening out into a cascade of questions, repeatedly revolving around subjective, cultural or national identity. The nature of these questions depends essentially on who is asking – and from where and with what intention. Ultimately, these endeavours merge into a questioning of our own existence.

The statements are taken form the interviews in the exhibition catalogue. “Homesick”, ed. by Hannes Sigurdsson and Christian Schoen, Akureyri 2006.

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