Today we headed to THE NEIGHBORHOOD with special guest Pétur Thomsen; for his photographic project Àsfjall, commissioned by The National Museum, he followed the built and untouched surroundings of this "small hill with a huge name" since 2008. Thomsen has been capturing traces of what he calls 'umhfverfing' (environmentalization) for some time now - the way cities expand into the surrounding nature, and the conflicts that these encounters produce, are made tangible in his work. Sometimes the presence of the man-made is hard to discern. For instance, in the third picture I took, the diagonal hilltop is actually the limit of a construction dump on the other side.
The students were asked to bring their particular interest to this area - as a physical object, in their pocket. This way they documented Hafnarjordur through the lens of bees, rust, time or social contact. Interesting questions have already started to arise regarding alternative histories for this area. To be continued...
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