The Meaning of Living is a new performance by 16 Lovers where you are invited to confront yourself at the Smáratorg minimall in Kópavogur. The collective has taken over the former premesis of Læknavaktin Medical Center and invites you to come for an extensive experience process with the goal to touch on the core of your existence and seize it with both hands. What does man want? Why do we do what we do? It Is while it is. We are we.
Photographs by Björn Snorri Rosdahl
MINNISVARÐI // MONUMENT
16 Lovers present a new piece about the spectacle, love and human society.
In Monument 16 Lovers tackle the idea and importance of the spectacle in modern society. During the last decade the presentation of our everday life and actions has been made into a spectacular event. The emphasis is on everybody’s possibility to shine on the own normal and ordinary terms. But the personal space, the crown jewel of our Western society, has been threatened by a monument of the self. Remember: The earth is smoother then a billiardball.
Performers in Monument: Aðalbjörg Árnadóttir, Davíð Freyr Þórunnarson, Eva Rún Snorradóttir, Gunnar Karel Másson, Karl Ágúst Þorbergsson, Ragnar Ísleifur Bragason and Saga Sigurðardóttir.
Artistic director: Karl Ágúst Þorbergsson
Set design and 16 Lovers costumes: Brynja Björnsdóttir and the group
Costumes: Una Stígsdóttir
Music: Gunnar Karel Másson
Lighting: Ólafur Ágúst Stefánsson
Stage manager: Þorbjörn Þorgeirsson
Producer: Hlynur Páll Pálsson
The Spectacle of the Year is a performance based on a survey on what Icelanders want to see on stage, as well as a research by 16 lovers on the impact of surveys on democratic societies. 16 lovers performed a survey in collaboration with the Institute of Social Science at the University of Iceland, in which the people of Iceland were asked what they would most want to see on stage, and what not. The survey was the basis for 16 lovers to create and perform The Spectacle of the Year, which shed light on what the Icelandic audience prefers to see on stage and what they would rather not see. Thus, the theater was used to research and examine the concept of the average, surveys and their impact on democratic communities. The Spectacle of the Year was premiered in March 2012 and performed in an empty office building in Reykjavík.
The Nigerian scam is a performing arts event researching the idea of justice in a wider context. The performance was the result of a research made by the performance group 16 Lovers, but the focus of the study was the digital scamming operated from West Africa, known as Nigerian scam letters. 16 lovers gathered e-mailed scam letters and answered them under a pseudonym in order to establish a contact with real scammers, creating text and studying the subject in depth. After months of e-mail communications with scammers around the world, 16 lovers had gathered sufficient material to dramatize the show The Nigerian Scam. The results of this work were two unique performances about the art of scamming, the Icelandic banking system, soap operas and pep talks. Celebrity appearances and loads of confetti included. The shows were both shown in Kassinn, at the National Theatre of Iceland.
ORBIS TERRAE - ORA
It is the dawn of a new republic!
As you enter a different world at the frontier of The Cultural House of Icelandic Heritage a new border has been established. In front of the building, a refugee camp symbolises the state of Iceland's independence in a time of financial depression, a nation as good as imprisoned in its own land. UN soldiers, peacekeepers and refugee-camp guards attend to people as they enter the gate. You are invited into what is called the heritage, a "true" aspect of a culture which offers no creativity - a museum of the past, of death. A new visa is required in order to enter each zone, and appropriate documents at every post.
The museum symbolises man’s eternal search for knowledge, his attempt to find context in life, but things tend to lose their meaning when taken out of their natural environment and put into the hands of a State or power. What is history but a museum of memories? Could it even be described as the mind of an old man or a woman? Every individual is a museum of knowledge, genetic memory, information saved in different places inside the body. During the performance you will be led through the labyrinth of His-tory or Her-story. The national culture becomes the culture of war and nothing will be the same again. A "do-it-yourself" killing programme, national heroes, anthems to sing, enough bread for everyone; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Performances, installations and music. Casualties unknown. The death of an historic memory is an option. The museum is a refuge and without the refuge it does not exist. The museum is an asylum. The work is sheltered from the weather, all sorts of dangers and, most of all, protected from any kind of questioning...
The actress and artistic director Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir, in collaboration with a group of artists, leads you through a performance of "borders and bureaucracy" and a play about "the culture of war" in The National Centre for Cultural Heritage. The collective will bring a delicate matter into the building, a symbol of Icelandic democracy and independence. The highly respected Cultural House of Icelandic Heritage becomes a venue for a circus of warfare, a debate about women, war and peace; "The Island remains", a play inside a play is about women meeting after a long war by Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir.
Other artistic leaders and participants are:
Eva Rún Snorradóttir, Friðgeir Einarsson, Karl Ágúst Þórbergsson, Gunnar Tynes (music), Þórunn Elísabet Sveinsdóttir (costumes), Frosti Friðriksson og Þórunn E. Sveinsdóttir (set design), Arnar Ingvarsson (lighting and technical). Actors, performance artists and musicians: Aðalbjörg Árnadóttir, Magnea Valdimarsdóttir, Halldóra Malin Pétursdóttir, Helga Rakel Rafnsdóttir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson, María Pálsdóttir, Gríma Kristjánsdótir, Sigríður Eir Zophoníasardóttir, Halla Mía Ólafsdóttir, Reynir Örn Þrastarson, Halga Birgisdóttir and many others.
Orbis Terræ Ora was a performance premiered in the House of National Heritage during the Reykjavik Arts Festival in 2009. The highly respectable House of National Heritage – a symbol for Icelandic democracy and independence – became a venue for a circus of warfare, a debate about women, war and peace. The collective of artists brought many delicate socio-political matters into the building in a performance of ‘borders and bureaucracy’ and a play about ‘the culture of war’.
Play by Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir
Director: Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir
Artistic directors: Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir and 16 Lovers
Premiered in the House of National Heritage, May 2009.
Ikea travels, an Icelandic company, with a new VAT number, is expanding again after the collapse and goes on viking to Faroe islands to open up a station there. They see business opportunities in Faroe islands isolation,it´s expensive for the inhabitants to travel. With Ikea travels around they can travel anyplace they like.
The offer is simple: a trip around the world, 100% pure experience, without ever leaving the building.
Travel around the world for 1990 ISK.
On the eve of the 2008 economic collapse, the ever shrinking krona (ISK) was starting to have an impact on the consumption habits of the population. IKEA Travels was a travel agency established to cater to the Icelander’s unquenchable thirst for travel. The offer was simple: a trip around the world, 100% pure experience, without ever leaving the building.
16 Lovers furnished an abandoned industrial building into their own version of the world, offering visitors a trip around the globe. IKEA Travels was unconventional theater wherein the audience took an active part in the progress of the exhibition. IKEA Travels was based on a social study made by the 16 Lovers on a society anticipating the economic collapse, in the fall of 2008. The study was based on the experience of discourse, talks about an economic depression, globalization, stereo types and prejudices.
IKEA Travels was opened in September 2008 and was one of the first company that went bankrupt in the economic collapse.
IKEA travels will be open for business again in Faroe Islands as part of the Nordic Performing Arts Days 2016, May 24th – 28th 2016.
