Art in Translation is a three-day international conference in Reykjavík from May 24 – 26, 2012, where scholars and artists of all kinds deal with texts through lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and performances. The conference will be held at the Nordic House in Reykjavík and Askja, at the University of Iceland campus.
The aim is to create an interdisciplinary forum to explore the connections between language and various art forms. This year the emphasis is on creative writing. Robin C. Hemley, director of the Nonfiction Workshop at the University of Iowa, situated in one of Reykjavík’s fellow UNESCO Cities of Literature, Iowa City, will give the opening lecture. Other keynote speakers will be Abé Mark Nornes, professor of Asian cinema at the University of Michigan and Calum Colvin, visual artist and professor at the University of Dundee in Scotland.
In conjunction with the conference an exhibition of Icelandic book arts will be mounted in the Nordic House as well as an exhibition of artworks by the Scottist artist Calum Colvin.
The conference affiliates and sponsors are: The University of Iceland, the Iceland Academy of the Arts, the Nordic House, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Vigdís Finnbogadottir Istitute of Foreign Languages, the University of Manitoba, Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature, the Centre for Research in the Humanities and the Translation Centre at the University of Iceland.
Registration and program, as well as information about the speakers, can be found at the Art in Translation website. Art in Translation is open to the public. While pre-registration is not required, guests, especially those coming from abroad, are highly encouraged to register. Space will be limited and priority will be given to those who pre-register.
Artists’ Books and Networks
24 May – 17 June, 2012
In conjunction with the conference, the Nordic House in Reykjavík and the project (I)ndependent People: Collaborations and Artist Initiatives at the Reykjavík Arts Festival.
Some fifty years ago a movement arose of artists who focused on the production of books as artworks. They exchanged books by mail and thus created a transnational network to foster radical new ideas on art, society and culture. Some Icelandic artists, led by Dieter Roth and Magnús Pálsson, were quick to embrace this new art form, thus laying the groundwork for a tradition that later generations of artists have used to disseminate their art and nurture communication with progressive artists around the world.
This exhibition examines this important aspect of contemporary Icelandic art, revealing the important role that artists’ books played in ending the isolation of Icelandic artists and allowing them to become active participants in the international avant-garde.
‘Ekphrasis’ Exhibition of Selected Works by Calum Colvin
24 May – 28 May, 2012 at The Nordic House
A practitioner of painting, sculpture and photography, Calum Colvin brings these disciplines together, utilizing the unique fixed-point perspective of the camera, in his unique style of ‘constructed photography’: assembled tableaux of objects, which are then painted and photographed. These elaborately constructed scenarios present a complex narrative tableau, rich in association and spatial ambiguities, which are exhibited as large-scale photographic prints.
Colvin lives and works in Edinburgh, another UNESCO City of Literature. His work is held in numerous prestigious collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Art, Houston; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London as well as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and the Tate Gallery.