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Fifty Plants for Peace

i

A photograph of a pink flower. The frame is narrow and the background is generic : Blue sky, a few clouds – we are not familiar with the place. This could be anywhere. Anytime.

 

In the final days of May 2011, the Iceland-Japan Society gifted the city of Reykjavík fifty cherry blossom trees that were planted in Hljómskálagarður Park.

The gift represented an everlasting friendship and peace between Japan and Iceland.

Gifting a cherry blossom tree as a token of peace is a longstanding tradition in Japan, often often planted where war has raged, where men had lost their lives. The trees represent both birth and death, beauty and violence. In Japan, they also serve as an emblem for the short, yet colorful life of a Samurai warrior. Furthermore, the pink flowers adorned kamikaze airplanes in the Second World War.

But what about the cherry blossom trees at Hljómskálagarður Park? Must battles be raised to plant peace?

 ii

The photograph captures a moment in time that will not be

repeated. The moment becomes eternal yet elusive, at the

same time. The memory centers itself around this particular 

angle and has the possibility of transformation.

 

Cherry blossom trees bloom annually, for a very short period

each time. They bloom in spring, usually for a week or two.

Should you miss a cherry blossom in bloom you’ll then have to

wait through fifty bloom-less consecutive weeks to see these

fragile pink flowers appear again.

 

For a moment, these trees alter themselves from being

”very ordinary trees” into otherworldly and dreamy

vegetation, most reminiscent of candyfloss or a snow-covered summer. Passers-by look up and linger for a moment. We are

reminded of impermanence.

Life is short, colorful, and precious. Life is unexpected and  

life

is a result 

of other people’s decisions. 

iii

ANYWHERE

What is taken out of context looks for a new context. Similar to an atom that is released from a molecule and searches for new connections. Like people search for connection. We yearn for context, we desire to belong.

Plants attach their roots to a particular place. We also tend to use the same word for ourselves – where our roots are – often referring to a particular place. It’s quite clear that plants can be uprooted and moved to the other side of the globe – but can people be uprooted and moved?

Out of place : Not in the proper situation, not belonging; inappropriate for the circumstances or location.

Where are you born? (In Ísafjörður or Kyoto?)

To be born and move

To grow up and stay

To fit in

Every year, pink flowers wake up in a public park in Reykjavík, far from their native place.

Bananas grow in a greenhouse in Hveragerði.

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WHATEVER

The frame is tight, and the plants seem gigantic, almost terrifying. A sharp eye detects tiny bananas in between enormous leaves.

The color of an object, the way we perceive it, is really the only color that the object does not absorb, but instead, reflects. If you stare at an object for long enough, then look at a white wall and blink a few times, you’ll see the image inversed. Dark becomes light, light becomes dark, green turns to purple, yellow to blue, and so forth. How we look at the world can reveal who we are, often in a more truthful way than how we present ourselves out in the world.

How does it affect the landscape when plants are moved from one corner of the world to another? How about the plants themselves? To grow bananas, certain circumstances need to be created. The ideal habitat for bananas is far away, in Africa, Asia, and South America. Icelandic bananas do not see the sun until after harvest.

Fimmtíu plöntur fyrir frið

Texti : Halla Þórlaug Óskarsdóttir
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I
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Ljósmynd af bleiku blómi. Ramminn er þröngur og bakgrunnurinn er almennur : Blár himinn, fáein ský – við þekkjum ekki staðinn. Þetta gæti verið hvar sem er. Hvenær sem er.
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Í lok maí árið 2011 gaf Íslenska-japanska félagið Reykjavíkurborg fimmtíu kirsuberjatré sem gróðursett voru í Hljómskálagarðinum. Gjöfin táknaði ævarandi vináttu og frið milli Japans og Íslands.
–
Kirsuberjatréð sem friðargjöf er japönsk hefð og hún er gjarnan tengd stöðum þar sem bardagar hafa verið háðir og menn fallið í stríði. Trén tákna bæði fæðingu og dauða, fegurð og ofbeldi. Í Japan eru þau meðal annars þekkt sem tákn fyrir hið stutta en litríka líf samúræjans. Bleiku blómin prýddu ennfremur flugvélar kamikaze flugmannanna í seinni heimsstyrjöldinni.
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En kirsuberjatrén í Hljómskálagarðinum?
Þurfa bardagar að hafa vera háðir til að gróðursetja frið?
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II
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Myndin fangar augnablik í tíma sem verður ekki endurtekið.
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Augnablikið verður eilíft og ófanganlegt á sama tíma.
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Minningin hverfist um þetta sjónarhorn og umbreytist jafnvel.
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Kirsuberjatré blómstra árlega, í afar skamman tíma í senn. Þau blómstra að vori, yfirleitt í eina til tvær vikur. Missir þú af kirsuberjatré í blóma þarftu því að bíða í fimmtíu blómlausar vikur eftir að sjá þessi viðkvæmnislegu bleiku blóm birtast á ný.
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Í eitt augnablik breytast þessi tré úr því að virðast vera „ósköp venjuleg tré“ yfir í einhvers konar yfirnáttúrulegan og draumkenndan trjágróður sem minnir helst á kandífloss eða snævi þakið sumar. Vegfarendur líta upp og staldra við um stund. Hverfulleikinn rifjast upp.
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Lífið er stutt, litríkt og dýrmætt. Lífið er óvænt og
lífið
er afleiðing
ákvarðanna annarra.
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III
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HVAR SEM ER
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Það sem er tekið úr samhengi leitar að nýju samhengi. Eins og frumeind sem losnar úr sameind leitar nýrra tenginga. Eins og fólk leitar tengsla. Við þráum samhengi, við þráum að tilheyra.
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Plöntur festa rætur við ákveðinn stað. Við notum líka þetta orð um okkur – við eigum okkar rætur að rekja – oftast til ákveðinna staða. Ljóst er að flytja má plöntur með rótum, hinum megin á hnöttinn – en er hægt að flytja fólk með rótum?
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Utangarðs : Utan girðingar eða garðs, utan við túnið; vera utangarðs í samfélaginu : vera út undan, vera ekki fyllilega viðurkenndur í samfélaginu
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Hvar ertu fædd? (Á Ísafirði eða í Kyoto?)
Að fæðast og flytja
Að alast upp og dvelja
Að passa inn
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Á hverju ári vakna bleik blóm í almenningsgarði í Reykjavík, fjarri ætthögum sínum.
Í gróðurhúsi í Hveragerði vaxa bananar.
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IV
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HVAÐ SEM ER 
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Ramminn er þröngur, plönturnar virðast risastórar, næstum óhugnanlegar. Glöggt auga sér agnarsmáa banana á milli gríðarstórra laufblaða.
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Litur hlutar, eins og við skynjum hann, er í raun eini liturinn sem hluturinn dregur ekki í sig heldur varpar frá sér. Ef þú starir á hlut nógu lengi, lítur svo á hvítan vegg og blikkar nokkrum sinnum sérðu andhverfu myndarinnar. Hið dökka verður ljóst, hið ljósa dökkt, grænt verður fjólublátt og gult verður blátt og svo framvegis.
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Hvernig við horfum á heiminn getur afhjúpað hver við erum, á raunsannari hátt en hvernig við sjálf berum okkur í heiminum.
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Hvaða áhrif hefur það á landslagið þegar plöntur eru fluttar heimshorna á milli? En á plönturnar sjálfar? Til að rækta banana þarf að búa til sérstakar aðstæður. Kjörlendi banana er langt í burtu, í Afríku, Asíu og Suður-Ameríku. Íslenskir bananar sjá ekki sólina fyrr en eftir uppskerutímann.
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Er gróðurhúsið fangelsi eða manngerð paradís? Eiga plöntur heimili?
Hvað er fallegt? (Hvað finnst okkur fallegt?)
(megum við búa það til?)
Hvað er viðeigandi? (Hvað finnst okkur viðeigandi?)
(verður það alltaf viðeigandi?)
Hver má skjóta rótum
Hver hefur frelsi til að ferðast
hvar sem er
hvenær sem er
og hver ákveður það?
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V
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HVENÆR SEM ER
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Hendurnar sem teygja sig í átt að blómunum eru líka afskornar. Hver á þessar hendur? Hvar eru þessar hendur?
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(Þótt þetta sé ein og sama höndin hverju sinni verða þær margar, ein fyrir hvert augnablik. Þetta er ekki sama ljósmyndin, þetta er ekki sama augnablikið.)
Hendurnar teygja sig í átt að trénu, en grípa ekki um það.
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Tíminn er ófrávíkjanlegur þáttur í ljósmyndun. Tími dags, tími árs, tímalengd ljósopsins, tíminn í sögunni. „Mómentið“. Í huga okkar er tíminn línuleg frásögn, saga okkar og framvinda hennar, bæði sem hópur og einstaklingar. Við eigum okkar uppruna – okkar rætur – og við stefnum inn í örlögin.
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Bleik blóm kirsuberjatrésins birtast okkur í skamma stund. Blómin minna okkur á lífið og dauðleikann og kannski minna þau okkur fyrst og fremst á að sleppa tökunum og dvelja í stundinni. Er sem er, ekkert varir að eilífu.
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Svona sjaldgæfur viðburður – jafnvel þó hann sé reglulegur – kallar á viðbrögð. Hvað gerirðu þegar þú verður vitni að blómgun kirsuberjatrjánna? Staldrarðu við? Tekurðu mynd? Klippirðu blóm til að þurrka og geyma?
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Er hægt að fanga þetta augnablik í raun?
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Sé ljósmynd sönnun, hvað sannar þá ljósmynd af skammlífu bleiku blómi?

Vegetation

At the edge of growth, where apple-trees are like crippled bonsais in an over-ambitious garden- at the sore marge of the covering verdure, at the beginning of the desert, the open wound addresses us.

Violet, pink, yellow, and green war-herbs challenge the desolation. Assertive plants that act as an army towards the enemies of our bodies. They’ll wreak havoc if they’re not challenged themselves and allowed to go on. Or what?

The herbs can maybe heal the situation. Bearberry is a stubborn one, but not so radical that it threatens the biological diversity of our flora, nevertheless keeping the earth in place. The crushed berries were said to keep ghosts away and strengthen our renal systems. But the black lymph was also known to aggravate the black bile. Out of bearberry, they used to make ink to write away melancholy. This antidote-way of thinking is an undercurrent in our history. What an interesting link between herbs, urinary tracts, and literature!

Les fleurs du mal. The Flowers of Evil. The forceful flowers. How difficult it would be to map all the flowers of evil. As well as our relationships to those flowers, and their extermination. The map would constantly change, due to hard-working city-workers plucking the evil out of every garden. And goodness, all the poison that we pour on those poor herbs that are historically known as alternative medicine.

It’s surely tempting for kids to wander outside of the garden fence, let themselves disappear into the forest. Look for clearing and stay there in calm and play. But there are beautiful, yet dangerous wildflowers, pink, yellow, green, and white. How lovely to ornate oneself with them in a ceremony of marriage, dancing on a red mushroom with white dots. That moment of joy will remain in the body. Alongside a scolding moment: How dare you disappear? How dangerous!

Memories of ambivalent feelings. Purple memories of intimacy. Then black and colorful and white. We’ll remake those moments with our scissors, photo-paper, ink, glue, and colors. We near ourselves to the core of the experience, when we in joyful play forgot ourselves. We try remembering by radiographing the vegetation, light it up, get inside it. Leaving the shame. There was no evil in us, and no evil belonged to the flowers. Little by little, we’ll thus illuminate our memories.

Surrounding ourselves with plants that remind us of that place where we found ourselves in rare relation to our surroundings. Experimenting with our own pseudo-landscape that can shelter us while our wounds heal. It’s an attempt to attest limitations.
We’ll find refuge in a distant banana-leaf-house. Create shelter from the erosion, under the ambiance of banana-leaf sounds. Colors that don’t exist in our vegetation become a part of our landscape anyway. But oh, the monkey in our glass-house gets sick when the only local banana-tree breaks in an earthquake. How vulnerable our plans!

At the speed of light, we receive new information from our open wounds. The reception rather slow, even though we tune up our wi-fi. Try biomimicry, try photosynthesizing? Are we getting it right about the importance of the wet-lands? And the urgency of dandelions? The upheaval of crazy flowers? What? Stop organizing our landscapes? Only to enter chaos?

And a message from the Tibetan Chögyam Trungpa: The essence of crazy wisdom is that you have no strategized programs or ideals at all. You are just open… This turns out to be a scientific approach in the sense that openness is in constant contact with nature’s elements.

(Crazy Wisdom, Seminar 1).

Ok, thank you, sir, if we allow the elements to play, the verdure to lead us, would there be drawn up new growth-maps based on something other than encroachment? Based on the destruction of verdure in one place and the flourishing of another, transplanting, fringing. If similarly ambitious roadmaps of our feelings towards different plants in the world existed. Emotions based on our collective ancestry and subconscious, as well as our personal experiences and trauma.

Let us start by drawing a picture of our wounds and verdure? Of our intimate relations to growth and the herbal ambivalence?

Oddný Eir Ævarsdóttir

A songbird, caged

Cuba is a country cloaked in an intriguing mystery, a place of cultural richness and political restriction. Its history is complex, and the isolation entwined in that history is equally compelling. When contemplating the confinement surrounding Cuba, the image of a caged songbird is brought to mind, relating both to Cuba’s tourists and its residents. We can all connect to this isolation in a universal sense today, our current global predicament causing so many of us to feel trapped and caged, no matter the country. While Cuba once felt unique in its restrictions, today it is a haunting new normal across the globe. 

In Cuba, one will most likely be quick to encounter a lonely caged songbird – a tradition of owning songbirds is longstanding in Cuba and a part of their cultural heritage. As Katrín Elvarsdóttir experienced in her travels to Cuba some years ago, most homes she encountered had one, if not many, adorned in intricate cages within sparse and barren homes. Perhaps the Cubans feel a certain affinity with the songbird, their own movements restricted and controlled. An isolated human seeking an isolated companion in their own cage. In a place where economic poverty is the rule rather than the exception, perhaps ownership of a songbird presents a certain facade of luxury, implying an indulgence of lifestyle so as to mask the appearance of lacking and wanting. 

In her work, Katrín captures an essential loneliness and solitude. And yet, within the images a yearning for richness calls out, both emotional and material. Her photographs are grainy and imperfect, inverted colors and negative images revealing odd tones that bring life to a mysterious country. This vibrancy of colors contrasts the subject matter – abandoned buildings, empty homes, vacant storefronts. The grandness of the Cuban architecture is deceiving, portraying a level of luxury and European sophistication while on the inside the buildings are largely void. A Colonial history shines strongly through the country’s architectural elements, and works in some ways to mask its true barrenness. Katrín captures a certain decrepitude in her photographs, though the viewer can feel a desperate attempt to fill in the gaps – to present an image of wealth, of having, and of abundance. 

And the songbird itself, photographed in the seeming dark (as the homes lack sufficient electricity and lighting). This creates a spotlight pinned onto the birds and their cages, bringing them out from the dark. It feels as though she is capturing a secret, revealing something that was meant to stay hidden. They peek out at us from their cages, asking for freedom, or at least for something more. The songbird seeks to connect and interact, and they  feel quite human to us in that sense – companionship is our most basic human need. 

An isolated country begins to feel familiar to us. A decrepit building, an empty room, a locked cage, and the lonely love song, echoing out on barren walls.

Daria Sol Andrews

Space-Time Continuum

English below

Katrín Elvarsdóttir birtir ómstrítt samband tíma og staðar í verkinu Space-Time Continuum. Hvernig minning okkar um stað er í senn hliðstæða og andstæða við reynsluna að koma þangað aftur. Allt er eins en þó öðruvísi. Staðurinn er sá sami og við þekkjum hvert smáatriði í umhverfinu: útlínur fjallanna, glufur í gangstéttinni, áferð styttnanna. En þessi smáatriði voru búin að gleymast. Endurkoman púslar aftur saman heildarmynd sem við þekktum og þekkjum enn.
Verkið er unnið á æskuslóðum Katrínar á Ísafirði þar sem minningar um staðinn ljá endurkomu þangað draumkenndan blæ. Möguleikar ljósmyndamiðilsins til að umbreyta myndefni sínu eru notaðir til að birta breytt landslag. Dökkir fletir eiga skipti við ljósa í negatívu ljósmyndarinnar sem umbreytir ásýnd umhverfisins og brenglar upplifun okkar af staðnum.

Brynja Sveinsdóttir

Katrín Elvarsdóttir presents a dissonant relationship between time and place in her work Space-Time Continuum: how our memory of a place is analogous to, and at the same time the converse of, the experience of returning there.  All is the same, yet different. The place is the same, and we recognize every detail of the surroundings; the contours of the mountains, cracks in the pavement, the textures of sculptures. But those details had been forgotten. Our return reconstructs a complete image that we knew, and recognize again.
The work was made in Ísafjörður in the West Fjords, where Katrín grew up, and memories of the place imbue the return with a dreamlike quality. The potential of the medium of photography to transform the subject are employed to depict an altered landscape.  Dark elements and light ones change places in a negative photographic image which transforms the character of the surroundings and distorts our perception of the place.

Brynja Sveinsdóttir