'Göt í Lök' [Archive] Book Art; Photography; Illustration. Varmahlíð, Iceland.
(February, 2021)
Following the death of Pétur, the artist’s rabbit, in November of 2020, 'Göt í Lök' (English: Holes in sheets,) was a project made during the artist’s two week stay at the Varmahlíð Artists Residency in Hveragerði in early 2021. Using sheets and bedding damaged by Pétur during the rabbit’s and artist’s life together, the work is a reflection on humans’ relationship with animals/nature. The resulting works presented here, online, as an archive comprised of photographs taken during the residency, illustrations and book-art, a set of small books bound using the sheets for the covers.
The 'rabbit holes', the visible tears in the book covers, absences, are suggestions of the tension between human beings and the natural world, their environment. The losing battle of human ambitions against a natural force. Be that force a pet destroying personal property, natural disaster, the effects of time passing. The books, the works of art, the human response to this reality. As natural as the animal’s compulsion to gnaw and chew, people must document, make meaning and narratives out of these forces.
The tears, the rabbit made holes, are also like burrows. Where the little animal created a passage out of this world - away, into somewhere else. Photographs taken during the residency of the natural landscape became incorporated into the project. Hveragerði is a town surrounded steam - an area known for geothermal activity - with areas marked dangerous to humans. Littered with monuments to this tension; humanity’s inability to separate themselves from nature. Much like living with a free-roaming rabbit, it’s a give-and-take relationship. Living with nature is fraught with contradiction. Dangerous, uncontrollable, but ultimately love and need dictates that people must live with it. Must learn to accept it. There is no life without the risk of hurt, without nature.
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This project is dedicate to Pétur the rabbit. He was a sweet, funny little creature. I loved him very much. And I thank the organisers of the Varmahlíð Residency with my whole heart for supporting me in this project.
