Reykjavík Arts Festival Puts Scent, Sound, and Transformation at the Center of Its 2024 Program
In Reykjavík this summer, the most memorable works at the arts festival may not be the ones seen first, but the ones inhaled, heard, and felt in the body. The Reykjavík Arts Festival’s main program ran from May 30 through June 14, yet several of its exhibitions and installations continue into the summer and fall, extending the festival’s reach across the city and beyond.
Among the most distinctive projects is a scent commission by Fischersund, the family enterprise led by Jónsi, the lead singer of Sigur Rós, and his sisters Lilja Birgisdóttir, Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, and Sigurrós Birgisdóttir. The fragrance was presented in a greenhouse installation in central Reykjavík, where hay, fog, and a deliberately disorienting atmosphere turned smell into a primary medium. Nearby, Fischersund’s shop-studio offered a second setting for the project: a black-painted interior filled with perfumes, candles, incense, and a basement display of Jónsi’s “perfume organ,” a sculptural arrangement of vials and bottles organized by their imagined musical qualities.
The same project also reached the stage. At a downtown music venue, Fischersund staged a live scent concert in which audience members were handed sample bottles and sprayed as part of the performance. One fragrance, titled “Faux Flora No. 1,” was described in notes that moved between milk, seedlings, concrete, and light, underscoring how closely the group links scent to image and sound.
The festival’s visual art program is equally ambitious. At the National Gallery of Iceland, Björk’s exhibition is built around three songs from Fossora: “Sorrowful Soil,” “Ancestress,” and “Nerve Bloom (Remix).” The first is presented with 30 speakers arranged in a ring and a large-scale projection of the song’s video, while “Ancestress” appears in a smaller room lined in blood red. The new remix is paired with animated imagery by Natalie Viv based on works by the Polish painter Natalia Kleszczewska.
James Merry’s companion exhibition includes the masks he created for Björk, alongside references to pagan fertility figures, Celtic iconography, and Icelandic plants. Elsewhere, Karin Sander’s survey at the Reykjavík Art Museum includes vitrines for visitors’ belongings, a wall work based on her Wikipedia entry, and machines that scan bodily images for 3D-printed plaster models. At the Living Art Museum, Open Group presents work shaped by the sounds of war and a new piece titled “Aurora Borealis.”
Taken together, the festival reflects a distinctly Icelandic appetite for art that is immersive without being literal, and strange without losing its precision. In a country where cultural life often feels closely tied to landscape, weather, and myth, Reykjavík’s festival continues to treat perception itself as the subject.
ReykjavikArtsFestival Björk JamesMerry KarinSander ContemporaryArt Iceland
