Works > Eldfell and I are the Same Age

Geologic Intimacy (Eldfell and I are the Same Age)

I spent my thirtieth birthday with a volcano born the same year. In 2003 I turned 30. To mark this event, I visited the Eldfell volcano on the Icelandic island of Heimaey, celebrating our simultaneous appearance in 1973. Ten years later, I went back to the island. Standing on the volcano, I thought about how Eldfell and I were almost 40. I wondered about returning to Eldfell when we both turned 50, 60…on. How, while we both share our lifetimes now, that will only continue for a certain amount of time, and then Eldfell will go from a human time scale, 30 years old, 40 years old, to a geological time scale – 150, 1000, 800 hundred million years old. I realized I had made a pact with Eldfell – a life-long project exploring what it means to share your life with a volcano. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, give or take a few million years. 

When I was 30 I found a crystal shard on the slopes of Eldfell. Upon return to the volcano, marking almost a decade more of life, I happened upon agates, which emerged from the ‘new lava’ in 1973. Some years ago, the anthropologist Gisli Pallson got in touch in regards to my work on Eldfell. He was born on Heimaey, and his childhood home was devoured by the lava flow in 1973. He has written a beautiful book on this and more, entitled “Down to Earth: A Memoir”.  He sent me a lava bomb, labeled “still glowing” when it was collected from the volcano on 17 June 1973.

A few years ago, during my first trip to Japan as part of ‘Geologic Intimacy (yu no hana)’ I learned about the existence of Nishinoshima, a young landmass 1000 KM from Tokyo, which is an active volcanic island that formed in 1973. Since that time, I have been obsessed with finding a way to Nishinoshima, to meet this newfound geological cousin. My growing geological family.

The world has changed in almost unimaginable ways since I first began my trips to Eldfell. Two years ago, reflecting on my imminent return to the volcano for our 50th birthdays, I began to worry, what would it feel like to be there after so much loss and change.  Then, an urgent and enlivening response began to grow – do something life-full.  This feeling led to the exhibition – A Meeting with Eldfell at Safnahús Vestmannaeyja. The show emerged from an ongoing conversation with an artist, a curator and an anthropologist, about our shared interest in Eldfell, resulting in a collaborative project to mark the 50th birthday of the volcano.

The exhibition included geologic material such as the first seismogram recording Eldfell’s birth and a core sample taken mid-eruption, as well as artworks and texts from Icelandic and international artists and writers who have made work about Eldfell over the last 50 years including Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, Dieter Roth, Ayan Farah, Ragna Robertsdottir, Hugh Raffles, Adam Putnam, Robert Smithson’s last published interview which featured images from the eruption, a beautiful new note on Eldfell from John McPhee, as well as my own work about Eldfell, and more. Colleagues in Japan also agreed to send volcanic rocks from Nishinoshima’s first appearance in 1973, to join us Iceland. Nishinoshima – meet Eldfell – hajimaymashitay – nice to meet you my volcanic sibling.

This artist-led initiative has grown into a communal biography of the volcano. We hope it will help foster an ongoing archive on Eldfell, connecting those who have visited the volcano with the many people who call the island their home. As people meet Eldfell on their own terms, whether those who fled the island in the middle of the night when the eruption started or grandchildren climbing up to the crater for the first time – it is a volcanic reminder that we are part of a growing geosocial family with shared responsibility that extends across the surface of the Earth. As Nishinoshima meets a new sibling – a volcanic island which has recently broken through the surface of the sea, our thoughts remain in Geologic Solidarity with the community of Grindavik following recent and ongoing eruptions. 

Now Eldfell and I are 52. I continue to think about my evolving relationship with the volcano, and with each other. My new work on Eldfell combines alternative self-portraits in the form of lava bombs, with a letter to an artist and friend on the occasion of a shared birthday.