3/5/2007
Roni Horn
Public Library, Stykkisholmur
Vatnasafn / Library of Water
Vatnasafn / Library of Water
For the past 25 years, the work of Roni Horn has been intimately involved with the distinctive geography, geology, climate and culture of Iceland.
In collaboration with Artangel, Horn has developed Vatnasafn|Library of Water as a multi-faceted long-term installation and community centre in the town of Stykkishólmur on the western coast of Iceland north of Reykjavik. Vatnasafn|Library of Water is situated in Stykkishólmur’s former library building, overlooking the ocean on one side and the harbour and town on the other.
In the main viewing room, Horn has replaced stacks of books with a constellation of glass columns containing glacial water from around Iceland – gathered from the glacial tongues of Vatnajökull, the glaciers of Hofsjökull, Langökull, Snaefellsjökull, and glacial rivers such as Skaftá, Hvitá, Pjósá, and Jökulsá. A customised floor is inscribed with both Icelandic and English words describing the state of the weather - or the mood of the viewer… Through the watery columns natural light is refracted and reflected onto the floor creating what Horn describes as a “kind of lighthouse in which the viewer becomes the lighthouse in which the view becomes the light.” Absorbing the visitor into a world of weather, water and light, the room also doubles as a space for reflection and a place for community activity from writers’ readings to women’s chess clubs, yoga classes and meetings about environmental issues.
Vatnasafn|Library of Water also houses Weather Reports You, an ongoing collection of testimonies from people living in the locality, an alternative kind of weather reporting inspired by the site of the building as the place where the recording of meteorological conditions in Iceland was first initiated.
Vatnasafn also launches an annual writers’ residency program with writers invited from the fields of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or screenwriting or from the natural sciences. The first writer in residence will be the Icelandic fiction writer Gudrun Eva Minervudottir.
Vatnasafn|Library of Water is Artangel’s first international project.
Public Library
Bokhlooustígur 17 - Stykkisholmur Islanda
Daily, 11:00 to 17:00hrs