John Berger pointed out a relationship between creativity and politics and the revolutionary potential of art. Braque stated, 'The things that Picasso and I said to one another during those years will never be said again, and even if they were, no one would understand them anymore. It was like being roped together on a mountain'. 7
3 infrastructure as place Forest Cave / Vettvangur, Mógilsá, Reykjavík, Iceland
In Iceland, it does feel as though one might slip into Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth . New and strange phenomena reveal themselves around each promontory. In the years between 2015-2019, I travelled there with students of architecture for several weeks, camping and completing large format plein-air orthographic sketches. Going to Iceland was initially the idea of Winnipeg- and London-based architect, Tanis Paul. We continue to go and we continue to settle differences on what constitutes suitable accommodations, seemingly a concern since the second half of the ninth century. 8 Our studies observe the relationships between landscape as found- architecture, 9 natural phenomena, coastal patterns, outpost shelters and infrastructure such as Iceland's ring road and the harnessing of hydro and geothermal energy. We pause to draw distinctions, building on the same landscapes that William Morris wrote about in his journals while visiting the island in the 1870s. In 2015, we were invited to work with a sculpture group and the Reykjavík Forestry Association to build what I refer to as a forest cave. In 2019 we built it. The shelter is three kilometres up a hillside in Mógilsá, just outside Reykjavík, and built with round wood timbers from the site and rough sawn lumber transported on a nearby service road. In a land scarce of trees we felt honoured to selectively use a few, to provide a simple pause along a path that blocks the wind and hosts the sun.
Max Porter
The Reykjavík Association of Sculptors conceived of the shelter project as one that would be added to by other groups. A pre- existing nearby path supports our project and in turn the path and our work will support an indeterminacy of future events and multiple authors. With this in mind the project is a form of infrastructure in dialogue. As travellers we had to equip ourselves with borrowed tools and time, working simply and together, each day walking up and down the hillside – bound together by that path and the wandering freedom that it afforded. It was a good path and one that I hope never becomes a road. Community collaborators: Reykjavík Association of Sculptors, Reykjavík Forestry Association, SÍM (The Association of Icelandic Artists), Tanis Paul, Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir, Gustaf Jarl Vidarsson, Halldór Úlfarsson, Eva Isleifs Students: Celina Abba, Alice Bardos, Andrew Falls, Yangyang Jiao, Sara LeBlanc, Caleb McGinn, Karen Mills, Max Porter, Chris Sahagun, Natalie Steele, Ryan Vandervliet, Jialin Xie, Sarah Yoes
7 John Berger. Landscapes: John Berger on Art. London: Verso, 2016 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_Iceland 9 Found architecture , a concept credited to architects Carmen and Elin Corneil
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on site review 41 :: infrastructure
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