Three questions to...Icelandic Love Corporation
What was the origin of your name?
When we decided on the name Icelandic Love Corporation, it was in 1997 or even 96. It came naturally to us. We are Icelandic and doing works about love. Corporation was a joke, because we are small, and we are definitely not a corporation. And love is maybe not something that people think about when they think about corporations. It is all very opposite. We were just trying to find a name that would work in English, because our Icelandic name would translate as “the performance club.” It does not have the same power in English as in Icelandic. In Icelandic it has more connection to witchcraft and women coming together, doing something together. And maybe by energetically calling yourself Icelandic, you become somehow more Icelandic, even though you are doing things internationally. But we are just people doing art and living in Iceland.
You recently completed the Vagus Symphony, about the vagus nerve. The Latin translation of vagus is wandering. Was that part of the thinking about that project?
Absolutely. The symphony is Vágušnár in Icelandic. If you would translate it directly, it is like wandering symphony. That meant a lot when we were doing the work, that it had this meaning of being the biggest nerve in the body that wanders from the head to the second brain, and everything that happens in between. We were thinking about the seven continents of the body, like the body as the Earth somehow. And the whole piece is in seven chapters. We wander between the highest part to the lowest part, and things happen on the way. For example, instruments. Sometimes you think an instrument comes from a specific place, but when you look into it, it has traveled from another place to this place. Wherever it comes from, it has a story. So we were also thinking about borders. Music and instruments have no borders, but people always have borders. Why do we have to have borders for people? Why can we not open everything up like music or creativity? Borders are made up. It is man-made. And man can also take it back if they want to. So we think about the Earth as a body, something like that. And we want the Vagus Symphony to travel the world. It is a project for the world. That is the reason there is no spoken language in the video. People can take it in through their ears and through their body. We see it as a healing sound, and visual healing for every human.
You have done films and performances. Your recent exhibition Written in Blood included watercolours, wall hangings and diplomas for post-menopausal women. Now that project is on billboards in Copenhagen. Do you call yourselves multi-disciplinary artists?
The watercolours were also collage and crochet. And we used some printmaking materials. And the wall hanging was pantyhose. Yeah, I mean, it is almost 30 years since we started and we as individuals have evolved. We have matured and gone through menopause and all that. We are graduated. We have our diplomas. So there are changes as well in our art. We use every medium possible. It is always the idea that controls what we do. Our pieces come from a lot of conversation about what is going on in our lives and in the world. Like the Vagus symphony is touching base with all the genres: acting, filmmaking, musicians, dancing, all the art forms. And now we are even making a book together with a guy from India. He just contacted us and it was such a nice coincidence. He was in Reykjavík and he found our email and contacted us. We were actually having soup with him just before we spoke to you. So we are making a book together with him, about our works. He is a poet and a writer and is going to be like a curator of the book. But we also want to make an exhibition. He will gather poets from different countries and they will reflect on works by us, and they will send us the poems and we will make new works from the poems. So I think we just try to be true to ourselves. That is the only thing you can do. It has to be very egocentric. By being egocentric you can be giving as well. I know egocentric sounds bad. I mean it comes from a place deep within you. I think people forget that ego is also very healthy. The right amount of ego can be a driving force. But as a label, if somebody asks you what you do, you say I am a visual artist. You do not say I am a performance artist or something. No, just I am an artist, and within that is all the genres. You can do everything.
