Interview with Haraldur Jónsson

Haraldur Jónsson was born in 1961 as the son of Icelandic parents in Helsinki and has lived — with interruptions — in Reykjavík since he was three years old. Haraldur is not a formalist. He does not allow himself to be tied to one visual language. He draws and writes. He performs acts and creates photo series and installations. He initiates space-oriented situations spiked with associations that generate sensations within the viewer. His aim is to create a physical rapport via perception on the one hand and via interpretation on the other. But this is never undertaken as a physical frontal attack; it takes place discreetly and subtly. His site-specific installation at the Akureyri Art Museum, Crumbled Darkness, confronts the viewer with a lava field of paper, a monstrous form of void.

‘Psychosomatic sculptures’ is a term you often use to describe your work. Can you explain what it means?
The term indicates a form of interaction between the body and its surroundings — equipping your mind and body with an object or an installation. In a way it’s a state of being both inside and outside the body. It refers to the ‘inter-est’, which literally means ‘being between’. An objective example of a psychosomatic sculpture is a sock or a glove: The moment you turn it inside-out, your relationship to that object changes.

The subjective consciousness seems to be your target. Do you think the roots for this lie in childhood (as you refer to kindergarten, family or home in other works of yours)?
I am quite conscious of the fact that the emotional weather of childhood, along with the diverse structures that surround each and every one of us, shape and condition the way we feel and perceive actual circumstances. This very fact is a bottomless well of inspiration. The multiple layers of memory in different materials open up various physical and sensory possibilities — as well as contradictory associations.

Do you see in this ‘bottomless well of inspiration’ the origin of what we call ‘home’?
The bottomless well is more of a reference to the body, how it registers and reflects experience. The term ‘home’ is a more problematic term. It’s not exactly a particular place or country but an emotional and mental space. It’s where you feel a sense of belonging without having any actual documents or a map to prove it. Or even a common language.

What is your approach toward ‘homesickness’?
The term homesick, or “heimþrá” in Icelandic, evokes diverse emotions. It’s actually a minefield of impressions. Some are closely related to the body as well as to certain places. Being homesick is a psychosomatic state, just like vertigo or the act of blushing for no reason at all. Or simply being petrified all of a sudden. It’s the impossible that envelops the whole. Homesickness is related to claustrophobia. As well as the need to leave one’s own body in order to experience the closeness of the faraway. When your passport is no longer valid. It’s the act of moving the intestines to the outside and into the room itself. It surrounds you on all sides but there is still a possibility to turn your head in the other direction. It’s an empty desert. Homesick is being out of words, absolutely mute. It’s being in a space without translation. Homesickness is an impression out of the blue and a non-verbal blessing in disguise.

Is the landscape-like installation made of black paper with the title Crumbled Darkness, created by you for this exhibition, a formal and psychic visualisation of the mute or the void?
This can be one reading of the work. But the installation is simply what it is. I don’t feel like verbalizing it too much. It’s certainly not an illustration. Black paper has many references and everyone makes their own personal connection. It’s totally soaked in ink, literally, as though everything had been written down and there was nothing more to say. Or something burnt, even an apocalyptic depiction of the formless. It’s up to you.

Do you think Icelanders are more prone to suffer from homesickness than others?
‘Homesickness’ has multiple meanings. It signifies some kind of pain or missing or nostalgia. But it can easily mean the state of being sick of home, when you’ve had enough of it all. The Icelandic word “heimþrá” is related to the adjective “þrár” meaning a stubborn person, but it can also signify old meat that’s no longer good for consumption. I think Icelanders are particularly vulnerable to homesickness. They do stick to this island, but without any obvious passion or reason. They tend
to have a pathetic, even a pathological relation to it. There is a certain kind of obsessive and even incestuous mentality which characterises the Icelandic version of homesickness. That’s the Icelandic syndrome.