Sequences Art Festival Looks for Answers Below the Surface of the Ocean

Since its debut in 2006, Sequences Real Time Art Festival has become a fixture in the Icelandic art calendar, with every iteration forging new connections between local and international artists. The eleventh edition, ‘Can’t See’, is curated by an Estonian collective composed of Marika Agu, Maria Arusoo, Kaarin Kivirähk and Sten Ojavee and includes works by 53 artists, mostly from the Baltic and Nordic regions. The programme is divided into four chapters – ‘Subterrain’, ‘Soil’, ‘Water’ and ‘The Metaphysical Realm’ – which are tied together by an overarching theme of the Anthropocene, with each section oscillating between the horrors of ecological destruction and the potential of excavating the past to imagine an alternative future.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a biennial dedicated to the concept of time, climate change is a prevailing theme in the works on display. In the ‘Soil’ section at Kling & Bang gallery, for instance, Bjarki Bragason’s In the Last Years (2023) features a life-size photograph of a tree that hangs from the ceiling right down to the gallery floor. The image, Since 1988 (2023), depicts a tree that the artist planted in the garden of his grandparents’ home, which was recently demolished to make way for new buildings. In front of the photograph on a low pedestal sits Log (c.3,000 Years) (2023), a chunk of wood found in the outlet glacier of Breiðamerkurjökull, dated to approximately 1,000 BCE. Bragason stages an enchanting meeting of two trees that, despite having originated in vastly different eras, co-exist here in the same moment, casting into sharp relief the brevity of our own human lifespans.

Above Kling & Bang is the non-profit Living Art Museum, which houses the ‘Subterrain’ section. Covering the windows of the museum is a series of ten mineral paintings by Monika Czyžyk. Created using broad, expressive strokes in wild clay sourced from Iceland, Poland and Finland, Drawing While Driving (Carving in a Whale’s Tooth) (2023) – best viewed at night when backlit – tells a frame-by-frame story of mythical anthropomorphic beings inspired by the artist’s travels. The title of the piece nods to the art of scrimshaw – engravings whalers historically made on bones – which, in turn, creates a connection to Reykjavík: Iceland is one of only three countries where whales are still actively hunted. While Czyžyk doesn’t openly judge this controversial practice, by creating an association between her work and the age-old carving technique, she encourages viewers to reflect on the ways in which human beings impact the world around them.

The section that resonates most powerfully with the location of the festival, however, is ‘Water’, which is aptly installed in the Hvelfing exhibition space in The Nordic House – a modernist building designed by Alvar Aalto located in an area of marshland just outside the city centre. Covering two walls at the entrance to the basement-level gallery are four large cyanotype prints by Helsinki-based artist Anna Niskanen, which depict various bodies of water flowing and crashing in all directions. Water Is Above (2022), Rushing and Pooling to Stay Still (2022), Melting and Shrinking (2023) and Ebbing Away (2023) create a dynamic installation that envelops the viewer in the beauty of the cyanotype, a 200-year-old printing process that produces images in a striking Prussian blue. Within the context of Iceland, Niskanen’s works – whose titles connote vanishing glaciers and hydroelectric power stations – speak clearly to the subject of environmental politics.

Nearby, Katja Novitskova’s Hydrothermal Potential (Lost City) and Hydrothermal Potential (Loki’s Castle) (both 2015) present recently discovered fissures located 2,000 metres underwater, on the seabed between Iceland and Svalbard. The two freestanding works depict hydrothermal vents: geological phenomena that create extreme conditions which facilitate the growth of rare genetic material that scientists claim might resemble life on other planets. A detached reptilian eye, perhaps belonging to one of the vent’s potential residents, peers back at the audience from the bottom of the ocean. Various industries have shown interest in mining the unique minerals produced in the area for commercial use – a development that would threaten the biodiversity of the area and possibly eradicate as-yet-undiscovered lifeforms.

Similarly, There Are Several Possible Worlds inside the Globe (2009), by the late Estonian artist Elo-Reet Järv, hints at hidden universes, but requires the viewer to imagine for themselves how these places might look. Made from leather scraps punctured with holes, Järv’s egg-shaped sculpture invites gallery-goers to peek into its centre. However, in a neat return to the festival’s title, the only thing visible inside the dark sphere is the fine structure that gives form to the sculpture. The work is installed in the foyer of the National Gallery’s pristine House of Collections, venue for the ‘Metaphysical Realm’ chapter, which, detached from earthly realities of the other sections, presents a more abstract exploration of the biennial’s theme.

Like many works in the eleventh edition of Sequences, There Are Several Possible Worlds inside the Globe hints at the mythic potential of places that are beyond the scope of the human eye. ‘Can’t See’ does not seek to provide viewers with a clear alternative for a viable way forward from our current ecological crisis. Rather, it prompts us to look for solutions ourselves, hidden in the cracks of the Earth or below the surface of the Ocean.

_{Main image: Sequences XI, ‘Water’, 2023, exhibition view, Nordic House, Courtesy: the artists and Sequences Real Time Art Festival; photograph: Pétur Thomsen}