"Each and every now and then" (2018)
Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes

Peppermint, Kling & Bang Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland
As part of Reykjavik Art Festival 2018.

The performance involves myself holding an ice-cream and walking in extreme slow motion.

As I walk, the ice-cream slowly melts and drips on the floor along the path I am walking. The shape and distance of the path are adjusted according to the architecture, but it will more or less be in the shape of a closed circle formed by many white spots, forming an image that resembles a ‘galaxy’.

When the performance ended, the ice-cream drops on the floor remained as an installation.

The work aims to push the ambiguity of the simplicity of one action in combination with one material, with the planned elements as only ‘ice-cream’ + ‘slow motion waking’, the power of the performance is magnified by its long-duration. The aim is to amplify the transition of the ‘presence’ of myself as a performance artist and a real human being: the physical and mental transformation I will go through in the duration of the performance, as much as the change in texture and temperature of the melting ice-cream, juxtaposing the ‘real’ time the melting ice-cream is in and the ‘exaggerated’ time myself as the slow walker is experiencing.

The image of ice-cream melting and the unnaturally slow walking is very universal, from simply being clumsy child with her ice-cream to the connotation of the loss of innocence, the rapid speed of global heating and the incredibly slow speed of recognition from humans.

“Walking shares with making and working that crucial element of engagement of the body and the mind with the world, of knowing the world through the body and the body through the world.” (Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking) The shape and scale of the artwork are determined purely by the path I walk. The performance joins in the conversation of “The Art of Walking” as creative practice started by the many masters, for example “The Lovers (The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink)” (1988) by Marina Abramović & Ulay, “A line made by walking” (1967) by Richard Long, and “A Pot of Boiling Water” (1995) by Song Dong, “Going to Work” (2010) by Magnús Logi Kristinsson & Roi Vaara etc., as well as the act of walking as a form of following, drifting, touring and protest.

Photos by Lilja Birgirsdottír.

Peppermint is a part of Reykjavík Arts Festival and is curated by Elísabet Brynhildardóttir, Erling T.V. Klingenberg and Selma Hreggviðsdóttir.

In collaboration with Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. Kling & Bang is supported by The City of Reykjavík.