Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, a.k.a. RAX, opened two exhibitions in Gerdarsafn, the Kópavogur Art Museum, last weekend, “Veidimenn nordursins” (“Hunters of the North”) and “Andlit aldanna” (“Faces of the Ages”).
From “Andlit aldanna” by RAX.
The first exhibition features Greenlandic hunters. “The times are changing and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Arctic regions. The ice is becoming thinner and the hunting period shorter. Where hunters used to look out over frozen sea ice as far as the eye could sea there is now an open ocean,” the museum’s website reads.
“The number of hunters decreases with every year that passes by and it is becoming increasingly difficult to survive of hunting. People are looking at the end of a community which is based on thousands of years of traditions and customs.”
The topic of the other exhibition is related to the first; it features melting glacial ice in Iceland, which to RAX looks like ancient faces.
“The glaciers are melting faster than anyone had suspected. We watch giant pieces of ice break from the Breidamerkurjökull glacial tongue and become mirrors in the sunshine for a few days. They swim around in the [Jökulsárlón] lagoon and look like sparkling diamonds before they disappear into the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.”
The exhibitions run until November 28.
Meanwhile, the portrait exhibition “PortretNú!” is running at the Akureyri Art Museum in cooperation with the Fredriksborg Museum in Denmark. It is a co-Nordic exhibition originally displayed in 2008.
“PortretNú!” runs until December 12. (Click here for further information in Icelandic.)
