But the adorable little urchin was right. We’d done a lot. But could we do more? “How about another Free Business Idea?” someone suggested. “The people, they remain unshod.” The fateful decision was made. Calls were connected, sleeper cells activated, a briefcase stuffed with unmarked cash crossed three borders on a single moonless night. Two days later the following article was taped to a brick and thrown from a moving car, breaking a window at the Grapevine offices, maiming two. 

Making money is, generally speaking, a lot of work. Men and women engaged in the Noble Art spend countless hours adjusting spreadsheets, yelling into phone receivers, saying things like, “Money never sleeps,” and “Don’t touch my bread.” It is tireless work. They dress differently from the mass, they see the world differently: where you see nature they see resources, where you see human frailty they see slick opportunity. The key thing to know is that they work hard for their dosh, all right? When they’re not working they’re networking. If they’re not working or networking they’re reading the business papers in leather armchairs. They are the deserving rich.  

Meanwhile lesser people engage in something called hobbies. Others raise families. Some senseless and misguided people even volunteer. I wrote this article for them. What’s needed is some method of making money from nothing. An infinite money glitch, a passive income stream, the satisfying clink of another coin tossed into the vault pile. 

Throughout time many schemes for easy riches have been tried and found wanting: alchemy, NFTs, forex day trading, highly leveraged and loosely regulated banking. But folk tales gathered in the mid-1800s by one Jón Árnason indicate that a scheme for infinite money does in fact actually really truly in fact exist. A scheme long forgotten, but bound to make a return. How it was first discovered is anyone’s guess as the process is a little intricate. 

First you wait until your friend is in an exceptionally good mood. Ideally a little drunk. Put your hand on his shoulder (it has to be his rather than her shoulder for reasons that will soon become apparent) then you ask if he’s willing to do a deal. The deal would go something like this: Good Friend, when you die, I’m allowed to flay the skin off your body, okay? But if I die first, get this, you get my skin! 

This will strike most right thinking people as a fair deal. What use will I have of skin in the great beyond? So he says yes, and he soon dies from an unfortunate accident. When he is buried, go by night and dig him up. Once you have skinned his lower half as one whole piece (don’t puncture it), step into the soggy trousers that once encompassed your beloved friend (RIP). Then Jón Árnason goes on to say: “So that the breaches may be of some use, one needs to steal a coin from an impoverished widow.” Place the coin in the necropantic scrotum. Here’s where all this effort (which I know you don’t like) starts to make an enormous amount of practical sense: Next time you’re at the checkout counter, you reach into your dead friend’s scrotum. You will find a bottomless supply of coins. Take what you need, just make sure not to use the initial ill-gotten coin! 

Sadly this spell hasn’t received much feminist critique, closed as it is to women donors, and I for one am not thrilled about stealing from impoverished widows. I think it’s plain wrong. But more importantly, another anachronism hangs over the whole scheme like a dark cloud: The money takes the form of coins. This might have cut the mustard back in the day but now, with cashless businesses running rampant, it’s anyone’s guess what payment system should sprout from the Modern Man’s necropants. Today you might reach into the sack and pull out a limitless bank card or even a phone, complete with a wallet app.  

Prissy detractors say it’s wrong to resurrect dark and ancient magic. Others may even doubt its veracity. But I say there’s no harm in trying. Worst case you’ll learn how to skin an animal, a useful skill for you people in the lower orders, who I am given to understand sometimes eat roadkill. The best case is that you’ll be rich, at which point I ask you to send a bit of your sack-coin to your old friends at the Grapevine — who put you on to the scheme to begin with. 

Freyr Thorvaldsson also writes Atlantic Islander — the premier newsletter for business psychos. Find it at freyr.substack.com 

The post Free Business Idea: Necropants appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Through the narrow gap of my slightly open bedroom window, I heard it: the unmistakable call of a Red-throated Diver. First came a mix of recognition and confusion. The call was familiar from home, but I was in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar cohabitation, in an unfamiliar country. Then the thought settled: a Red-throated Diver is a waterbird. There had to be water nearby. 

Later that morning, on my way downtown to meet other exchange students, I crossed a bridge. My map told me I was looking at Grafarvogur, just 200 metres from my window, as the crow (or diver) flies. A small dark shape rested on the water. Possibly my alarm clock. At that moment, Iceland became one bird less abstract. 

Interspecies guides

The following week, my world was small: the campuses of Listaháskóli Íslands (LHÍ) and Háskóli Íslands (HÍ), and the route between them. But birding expands even limited geography. On my first walk through Reykjavík, it wasn’t the buildings that oriented me; it was the soundscape of Tjörnin. Between a church, a parliament, and a theatre, I found Whooper Swans, Gadwalls, and Greater Scaup closer than I had ever experienced before.

Passing Þorfinnstjörn, Arctic Terns dive-bombed me – clear evidence of a nearby nest. Outside HÍ, European Golden-Plovers ran across the lawn, probing for worms. By a small shed in the harbour, a White Wagtail entertained bystanders, catching insects mid-flight. Outside the swimming pools, Redwings hopped around, slightly larger and darker than the ones I knew from home. Within days, the city began to organise itself not by streets, but by species. 

Welcome to Iceland

Birders tend to be quietly strategic when travelling abroad. Many of us keep a “dream list,” a mental inventory of species we hope to see. These lists come from field guides, but just as much from social media, where birders share sightings and fleeting encounters. It’s a global, loosely connected community where the barrier to interaction is low. You can ask a stranger about a bird and end up with a place to stay. 

Before moving, I had already made a few contacts in Iceland. So when a flock of American Cliff Swallows, firmly on my dream list, showed up in Reykjanesbær two weeks into my stay, things moved quickly. My internet friend Edward connected me with Simmi, who offered me a ride. As we drove across Reykjanes, Simmi pointed out landmarks and told stories, filling in the landscape I had only just begun to see. At the site, I met others I had only encountered online, including Yann. “Welcome to Iceland,” he said, as we watched the flock of incredibly rare birds. It felt accurate. 

Learning the patterns

Birding doesn’t just teach you where you are, it teaches you how a place works. Birds indicate environment and change. Certain species appear in certain places, at certain times, under certain conditions. When I arrived, it felt like noise. Then patterns emerged. Ruddy Turnstones returned to the same stretch of beach by Grótta. Gadwalls lingered in the vegetation at Vatnsmýrin until evening. Eastern winds could bring European Robins across the ocean, and when they arrived, Fossvogur cemetery became one of the best places to find them. Through these patterns, the unfamiliar became legible for me. 

The bird way in

The second time I moved to Iceland, it felt different. I was no longer arriving into abstraction, but returning to something partially known. The same landscapes were there, now layered with memory and recognition. I hitchhiked more. I asked more questions. I reported the birds I saw. Somewhere along the way, I began writing and making art, trying to understand not just where birds are, but what they make possible between people. Because birding, at its core, is a way of paying attention: to land, to weather, to movement, to details that are easy to pass by. 

I’m not claiming the answers are in the birds, or perhaps I am, but learning a place and its people is also about learning what isn’t spoken. Birding creates small openings for that: a shared vocabulary between strangers, a reason to switch languages mid-sentence, an excuse to knock on a door, join a walk, or follow someone’s directions to a windswept corner of the city. It is a practice that could just as easily welcome other newcomers as it has welcomed me. 

I arrived in Iceland in the dark. A bird showed me where the water was. I understood a little bit more. 

The post Following Birds, Finding People: Discovering Iceland Through Birding appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

As spring rolls around, nothing encapsulates the turn of the Icelandic music season as well as Músíktilraunir. Since the 1980s, the perennial battle-of-the-bands style competition has been platforming musically inclined adolescents and slingshotted some of them to worldwide fame. For this year’s iteration, 11 acts from four qualifying rounds were selected to perform in the finals, held on March 28. 

Ultimately, it was the prog-folk trio Falinn Gjóður (Hidden Osprey) which took home first place, followed by experimental jazz group Brenninetla in second place, and IDM artist Lára in third. 

An untimely decision

Comprised of three 16-year-olds, Falinn Gjóður plays a 21st-century rendition of progressive and folk rock. Citing influences such as Frank Zappa and Hinn Íslenski Þursaflokkur, Falinn Gjóður uses elements of traditional songwriting thrown into a shaker with disparate elements of rock, sifted through so many filters that the original source is long contorted. Performed by a bass, electric guitar (and sometimes, a banjo), and electronic drums, the arrangements were made from necessity rather than aesthetics. 

“We just did it because we couldn’t find a drummer in time for the show,” guitarist Þorri explains. “It’s a bit of a hassle to have a drummer, and the electronics are good,” bassist and lead singer Aron Elí Arnarsson continues. “Eventually we want to find a drummer,” he says. 

Having been introduced to each other through school and their musical education, the three were in informal talks of forming a band based on their mutual music interests. Músíktilraunir, however, served as the band’s impetus. “We didn’t form the band until two days before the deadline,” Aron admits. 

Love for the game

Despite their young age, the musicians are incredibly articulate in describing the pre- and post-show jitters, the current state of the music scene, and their future plans. 

“We weren’t hoping to win. We were just participating to have fun,” keyboardist, computer operator and background singer Baldur Þórarinsson says. “I’d say we weren’t playing just to win. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun,” Aron concurs. “When our name was called out, it felt like a dream. I’m still waiting to wake up,” he explains. “A lot of people have complimented us, and that’s so encouraging,” Þorri says. 

For teenage musicians, access to public music spaces has always been a barrier given strict age requirements at music venues. With the decline of mid-sized venues and bars, this access is further curtailed, giving increased importance to spaces such as Músíktilraunir. 

“It’s a bit sad,” Aron comments. “The number of places seems to be going down. But if you look hard enough, for example what’s going on at Iðnó and that sort of thing. If you know where to look, there’s enough to be found,” he continues on a positive note. “I think accessibility to these places, like Músíktilraunir, needs to be increased. Or venues that allow small bands to perform. It’s difficult to enter the scene,” he ruminates. 

A declining institution?

With this year’s Músíktilraunir in the bag, countless young musicians have sought the opportunity to further their musical aspirations. Still, as every new year passes, it becomes more and more unclear what kind of talent the institution wants to incubate — and how it wants to do so. 

Notwithstanding the high median age of the organisers and jury panel, very few winners since the infamous gap year of 2020 — apart from perhaps KUSK — have managed to establish themselves as an artistic force and build on the resources and prestige a Músiktilraunir win provides. 

Whether this is an industry or an institutional issue is unclear, but the fact remains that Músíktilraunir has become a rigid establishment, and young people don’t really vibe with institutions. As asserted before, the system needs evolution. 

The post Teenage Kicks And Funky Licks appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

It is a short stop in Reykjavík, and, by the next afternoon, when I give him a call, Hlynur is already on location outside Höfn. 

“After my first two films, I had this feeling that I didn’t like the distance between an idea and filming it. There’s years between,” he says. “There’s playfulness, and spontaneity, and an impulse that goes away in that process.” 

When he and his family returned to Iceland after more than a decade in Denmark, he wanted to bridge that distance. “I thought, can we just buy a camera and make small, playful things while we’re developing and making bigger things, the bigger ones being the features that finance the way we live?”

Somehow Hlynur managed to make it work. Spending years financing a film only to shoot it in two months is perhaps his worst nightmare. He’s always been more interested in exploring narrative threads than traditional plot, often taking just as much time to do so. In Godland, he filmed a decomposing horse for two years; in The Love That Remains, he spent years following the threads of a family; and Joan of Arc, shot over three years, began as a “process of getting into The Love That Remains.” 

As Hlynur kept filming, writing and exploring, he fell more in love with the story. “I just kept filming and this very strange little film became, actually, my favourite of everything I’ve made,” he admits.

Play, punches, and magic

Filmed in a small camera house equipped with a sound recording system, within walking distance from Hlynur’s home on the outskirts of Höfn, Joan of Arc uses a single frame for the entirety of its runtime. In it, energetic twins, Grímur and Þórgils, Hlynur’s own sons, build a knight-like figure to shoot arrows at. It’s a task that seems to keep them busy for months: first they dig a hole, install a pole, build and rebuild the dummy, all while throwing punches at each other and breaking into sibling squabbles. In the background, seasons change, birds fly away and return, the ground erupts with grass and flowers, then hardens under ice, and the sky changes from summer hues to crisp winter blue. 

Their older sister, Ída Mekkín, appears on screen from time to time, laughing at the boys, teasing them. This DIY backyard project holds no interest for her — she’s a teenager now, and likely spends most of her time locked up in her room watching Narcos. But once the hard work is done, she eagerly picks up a bow and names the figure Joan of Arc, teaching the boys that women can be knights too.

The tangible energy between the kids is the foundation of the film. Not for a second do you doubt that they’re actually siblings — they move around the screen with an ease only those who grew up in the same house, likely sharing a bedroom, can. Little teases, small jokes, the casual cruelty of making someone feel stupid without really meaning it — all of it feels natural, almost impossible to write. While the film uses written dialogue for deeper or more philosophical moments, more often Hlynur simply creates the circumstances and steps back. “It was about creating setups where I maybe wouldn’t write a scene, but I would, for example, give one of the boys a brand new shovel, and one of them an old one,” he explains. “It’s like tension without doing anything, almost.” 

Blending fiction with spontaneity, Hlynur often let the camera roll even as the boys fought on the ground, watching carefully to ensure it didn’t get out of control. “They’re used to it, and they’re good at pulling through even if they hurt themselves. Of course, never seriously,” he says. “I didn’t want it to be sentimental. I wanted it to be a little bit rough, like it is.” 

“My favourite scenes are actually some of the long freestyle scenes with the boys,” he continues, “where they’re just talking shit for five minutes — just talking, throwing punches, making fun of each other, shooting arrows. Those scenes are absolutely impossible to write, and I think they’re just magical.” They evolve naturally, he adds, and were the reason he fell for the process of making this film.

Capturing time

This sense of authenticity allowed Hlynur to be playful in ways his previous features hadn’t, pushing into surreal territory, dabbling in magical realism and slapstick humour. “I knew that this kind of magical, absurd, weird, surreal side would only work if the family felt real,” he says. 

Finding the right frame, however, took time. “It’s only one frame for three years, for 62 minutes, and that kind of sounds really boring, but actually there’s a tension in that. How do you make that work? It’s really difficult,” he says. “It’s a beautiful challenge for us as filmmakers: how can you make one frame work, and how do you build on that?” 

The frame he chose, though static, feels almost tactile and layered — sky, sea, small islands, cliff, grass — add the rapid changes of East Iceland’s weather and it almost comes alive. Small moments of magic, like “the sound of birds coming after winter,” kept Hlynur returning to the camera house for days, sometimes months. “I could feel that these things were impacting me,” he says. “So I hope that if you spent an hour in the cinema, it would also impact the audience.” 

The extended nature of the process meant that Hlynur served as his own cinematographer. Working with his frequent collaborator, Copenhagen-based Maria von Hausswolff, simply wasn’t practical. “She has her own life and family, and it would be too expensive to fly her over here each time I pick up the camera,” he says. 

Before they leave the nest

As Hlynur talks about the making of the film, I ask whether it exists in part because the cast are his own children — real sibling dynamics, and the kind of 24/7 access most filmmakers can only dream of. 

“The things that I’m interested in making are the things that only I can make,” he answers. “And I don’t mean that in an arrogant way or anything. I’m not saying that these are the best things in the world.” What he means is working with his surroundings, both in terms of landscape and people. Look through credits of any of his films and you’ll notice the same names returning, both actors or crew, reinvited project after project. “It is creating a life and a family of filmmakers so you can work together, and it’s not about only one singular project — it’s about growing older together and making different things.” 

His kids have no interest in pursuing acting or filmmaking, but they’re curious enough to take part — and as Hlynur notes with a smile, they get paid. There’s a more sentimental reason too, one that Hlynur has spoken about openly: time. Making films with children is a way of spending time with them before they grow up and their lives pull them elsewhere. He’s already experiencing that with his eldest daughter, Ída, who recently turned 18 and moved away to study. 

“One of your main characters, who is a lot in your films, suddenly has a smaller role — just naturally because she doesn’t live with us anymore. And, suddenly, the boys kind of step in and become the main characters. This isn’t something we pre-plan or preconceive. It’s just something that happens very naturally, and that’s my favourite thing,” says Hlynur. “Whether it’s films, video installations, paintings or whatever, if the work you’re making surprises you in some way, that’s the best thing in the world.”

While he treasures time with his children, Hlynur sees both life and work as evolving chapters. “When you grow older, there are new things and new dilemmas in life and things you experience and the people around you — so you begin exploring different things,” he says. “I can feel a change from the things that I’m planning in the future, they’re quite different from the things that I’m making now.”

A fragile industry

A few weeks earlier, I spoke to Stockfish Managing Director Dögg Mósesdóttir, who noted that Joan of Arc is the festival’s only Icelandic premiere. “There have just been very few films made because of cut-downs in the film industry,” she said.

“Which is scary,” Hlynur adds. “Whether it’s directors, gaffers, editors, or whatever, the filmmaking community is really struggling now because there’s less and less money to put into filmmaking and culture. The film fund, the foundation for Icelandic cinema, for the language of Icelandic cinema, is being cut. It’s almost impossible to nourish cinema and the next generation of filmmakers.” 

Hlynur admits he is among the lucky few. Last year, he premiered two films, in part thanks to international collaborations. Joan of Arc, he notes, only found its audience because distributors who bought The Love That Remains were willing to take a chance on it. Otherwise, getting such an experimental, strange work out into the world would be difficult. “If I wouldn’t have that,” he says, “I wouldn’t have survived as a filmmaker because there would be too much of a gap between films.” 

Hlynur is already deep in new projects, though he admits, “It’s not looking very good with the government right now, in their lack of love towards the arts.” He’s a year into filming his fifth feature, On Land and Sea, which pushes beyond the terrain of Godland. “It’s basically the genesis story of my hometown. It’s a story of a family that deconstructs their house and turns it into a raft to sail to the other side of the mountain, to rebuild their house and find a home,” he explains, stressing, “That’s actually a true story. I know that nobody will believe me, because in Godland, I wrote that it’s a true story, and it wasn’t. But this is actually a true story.”

Joan of Arc is screening at Bíó Paradís. See showtimes at bioparadis.is   

The post Hlynur Pálmason On Authenticity, Slow Filmmaking, And His Funny, Atmospheric “Joan of Arc” appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Social media is awful. From data peddling to misinformation, platforms have been shown to increase polarisation in the world of today. By prioritising, even rewarding, extreme content and creating disparate echo chambers via powerful algorithms, social media truly is awful. 

On a positive note, there has been a shift in how people use and approach social media in recent years. Whether it’s the “analogue trend” of 2026, complete abstinence from social media, or “bricking” your phone, the general mood seems to be moving towards increased opposition, possibly spurred by app fatigue and digital lethargy. 

Some, however, don’t oppose the concept of social media, pointing to its uses for connecting people across distances. In early 2026, news broke that two young software engineers were doing exactly that. Slapp, a new, Iceland-only social media app, set out to unite the nation on a single platform.

“We always had this idea on the backburner,” Kristján Leó Guðmundsson explains, co-founder of the venture with Bjarki Sigurjónsson Thorarensen. “I think it was last summer when we had the idea of creating a sports social media. There wasn’t a lot of interest, so we put that aside and started experimenting.”

Bjarki continues the origin story. “We had sensed a general feeling among people that they were tired of social media and the ads. It wasn’t until November, where I saw a Facebook post asking whether a platform like [Slapp] existed,” he says from his student housing in Sweden. “I began working on the side, throwing up a prototype which only featured a digital ID log-in and a wall you could post on.” 

Therein lies Slapp’s genius. By limiting users to a government-issued digital ID, Slapp circumvents the contemporary problem faced by other platforms riddled with fake profiles and malicious bots. On the other hand, it limits its user base to a small North Atlantic island. 

Local social media

Creating a new social media platform is a subversive action. That is, by rolling one out, you acknowledge that somewhere, something is broken within the code of other platforms. Bjarki begs to differ. 

“The question isn’t, ‘What wasn’t working?’ But more, ‘How are they working?’ The advertisements, the AI content, the fake accounts — we’re seeing explosive amounts of these types of content on these platforms. Especially the ads, which are just a bit too targeted, especially on Instagram,” he laments. 

Kristján dubs it a “local social media” (locial media, anyone?). “You’re connecting with people, friends and family, who are in a similar location as you. These people are in Iceland. It’s also clearly valuable for the language — you’re reading posts in Icelandic. I think that’s a big component. It’s like how social media used to work before.”

So, how does Slapp work? At its most basic level, it’s an infinite scroll feed comprising text, photos and videos. The twist is, you see every users’ full name and birth year, if they make it visible. 

Friend requests can be sent, but the feed can be tailored to receive updates by filtering “everyone”, “for you”, “popular posts”, and “friends”. A nifty feature allows you to toggle whether you’re “partying” — therefore openly admitting to your friends that you have a binge-drinking problem. 

Since its rollout, Slapp has become slightly cumbersome, with features being added that encapsulate the fact that this was made by two dudes in their 20s, most notably a dating option. 

Desperate measures

Slapp comes at an interesting time where countries worldwide are either considering, or have already placed, limitations on social media. In December 2025, Australia was the first to enact landmark legislation, banning children 16 years and younger from accessing social media. 

Conversely, Slapp’s digital ID barrier allows children 13 years old and up to use the platform, given the ID’s proprietary age restrictions. According to the founders, age restrictions did not enter their start-up discussions. 

“We will comply with all the legal requirements,” Bjarki puts it plainly. “It’s easy, very easy — easier on Slapp than other platforms — to enforce an age requirement. If the state would suddenly ban social media for children, we could implement that in a single day. As it stands, you can’t access Slapp without a digital ID. So that’s the age limit now.”

By sticking to an infinite feed, Slapp, like other platforms, creates a frictionless interaction between the user and browser, which may lead to compulsive browsing. For the founders, that’s not a point of contention affecting hollow spikes of dopamine. 

“I think the main factor affecting the dopamine spike are the likes and notifications,” Kristján ruminates. “When you leave [social media], you’re unhappy. But we want people to feel good on and off the platform,” he continues. “I think, if you’re seeing more content from friends and family, you’re more likely to have your needs fulfilled. It gives you more fulfillment than seeing a random video of a person falling somewhere,” he philosophises. 

“What I’m getting out of [Slapp], and what I think plays into this social media addiction, is a limited need to be comparing myself to other people in the world,” Bjarki contrasts. “[Slapp] doesn’t allow the same comparison with seven billion people each day which leads to unhappiness and that dopamine spike.” 

World peace 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. While Slapp presents itself as a positive, more down-to-earth, force than its parallel platforms, only time can demonstrate its usefulness. But its founders have lofty ideals. 

“One of our goals is to unify society,” Kristján states. “There’s a lot of fragmentation among people on other platforms, I think. The sentiment I get from people is that we’re all friends here. That’s also a factor playing into the experience on and off the platform. Maybe you leave with a sense of purpose.”

And data collection is off the table. “These big platforms, they’re exchanging data between each other. We won’t be buying data from Instagram with the purpose of supplying you with a better feed,” Bjarki iterates. 

Having provided the work pro bono for months, Slapp has now moved to a LinkedIn-style monetisation scheme with Slapp+. The premium version allows users to see profile views, post statistics, visibility of promising suitors on Slapp Date, and other marginally useful options. 

Scrolling through Slapp’s infinite feed, you get a sense that the majority of its demographic skew young — even Gen Alpha — creating the possibility of a generation growing up totally reliant on Slapp for socialisation. However, whether the dominant culture of the platform turns constructive or destructive is entirely up for grabs. 

The post Slapp-ing The Pain Away appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

For a thousand years Icelandic has had its own Icelandic names for various places and geographic locations visited by Icelanders or discussed in the numerous sagas and other literature written in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries. Some of these names have stuck and are still in use. Gothenburg is always called Gautaborg in Icelandic, Copenhagen is Kaupmannahöfn. You catch our drift. 

Then there are placenames that sound nothing like the original. One is Mikligarður. The Icelandic for Constantinople, now Istanbul. In the time that Mikilgarður entered common use in Scandinavia, in the 9th or 10th century, Constantinople would have been the most densely populated city in all of Christendom. Many times the size and population of any so-called city in Europe at the time.  

And what does Mikligarður mean? Of course it means a great garden or a great farmstead. What better captures the essence of a sprawling metropolis than a word consisting of “big” and “farm”?  

But why? Well, back in the 10th century, there were precious few cities of a respectable size a Scandinavian would have seen. Scandinavia itself hardly had towns at all. So the Scandinavian languages, Icelandic included, may not have had a good vocabulary to describe towns or cities, not to mention anything as impressive as Constantinople. However Scandinavian farms, and that was pretty much all the infrastructure the area had at that time, were often delimited by a wall, made out of stone, without mortar. The Old Norse word for such a structure is Garður, and a farmer’s land is therefore, to this day, often called Bondegårde, e.g., in Swedish.  

So picture this. Young Scandinavian — let’s call him Ulfr — travels to Constantinople by way of doing some slaving, raping and pillaging on the Dnieper and the Black Sea. He then joins the Varangian Guard. Makes a buck. Travels back home. Now, Ulfr wants to describe to his mom the magnificent gigantic city of Constantinople in a way she’ll understand. He searches for words. Finds none. So what does he end up with? Well, the greatest city in the world looks like — yeah — a really, really BIG farm. 

Learn more Icelandic words hér.

The post Word Of The Issue: Mikligarður appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The humble brunch is perhaps one of the greatest inventions of the modern age, whether it leans into pancakes, bacon and eggs, or something altogether lighter. The city of Reykjavík is particularly well stocked with places to indulge in the breakfast–lunch hybrid. Our brunch scene has long orbited around 101, where queues snake out the door, mimosas are a go-go, and indulgence comes stacked, poured and refilled. But lately, as locals increasingly feel the city centre slipping into tourist territory, the gravitational pull seems to be shifting outward. In Austurbær (East Reykjavík) and Vesturbær (West Reykjavík), two very different cafés are quietly making a case for brunch that feels less like a performance and more like a habit. 

Photo supplied by Makona

Makona in Austurbær 

When Makona opened in Borgartún only a couple of months ago, it felt like an attempt to soften the city’s most corporate stretch, less suit-and-spreadsheet, more slow coffee and something indulgent on a plate. 

Set in the heart of Reykjavík’s financial district, the space, formerly home to a rather uncharming pizzeria, has been transformed into something unexpectedly airy and calm. High ceilings, large windows and a warm, sophisticated palette of wood and beige give it a softness that feels almost at odds with its surroundings. It’s busy, but never cramped; tables are generously spaced, and the overall effect is one of understated ease.

On weekdays, Makona caters largely to the office crowd with buffet lunches and an evening à la carte menu, but weekends are clearly where it comes into its own. Brunch is served buffet-style across curated stations that reward a slow, considered approach rather than hurried plate-stacking.

The usual suspects are all present: a full English breakfast, croissants and pastries, yoghurt and muesli, cheeses and charcuterie. But there’s also a more substantial, almost Sunday-lunch offering: roast lamb, crisp potatoes, and a notably good vegan lentil pie that elevates the spread beyond standard buffet fare. 

For the health-conscious, there’s a generous selection of salads, fresh slaws and Middle Eastern-style accompaniments, alongside panini and what might well be one of the best hummus offerings in Reykjavík: smooth, balanced, and clearly made with care. 

If you still have room, the dessert table leans into indulgence. Alongside familiar staples like chocolate gâteau and cheesecake, the standout is the pastéis de nata which is a rarity in Iceland. These small, flaky Portuguese custard tarts, caramelised just enough on top, alongside excellent coffee, are reason enough to linger longer than intended. 

Makona has, unsurprisingly, in its short lifespan, become a popular weekend destination, so booking ahead is advisable. The crowd spans everything from couples to large family groups, and the atmosphere remains bright, relaxed, and relatively unboozy, making it an easy choice for a more laid-back daytime gathering. 

It’s the kind of place you drift into on a Sunday and stay longer than planned, making it the sort of neighbourhood spot this part of town has quietly been missing. 

Photo by Art Bicnick

Kaffihús Vesturbæjar, Vesturbær  

Kaffi Vest, on the other hand, doesn’t need much introduction. When it opened in 2014, it was something of a pioneer, one of the first cool cafés to make a convincing case for life outside 101 Reykjavík. Situated in Vesturbær, a neighbourhood that manages to be both deeply local and quietly chic, it sits opposite the ever-busy Vesturbær pool and draws a crowd of regulars, artists, and the kind of culturally attuned, well-educated residents that give the area its distinct character. 

Comfortably in its own rhythm, brunch here is not an event but a continuation of the morning. Always busy but never hurried, it is perhaps the closest thing to a French café in Reykjavík, embodying a quiet, old-world elegance: classic, unpretentious interiors, a chalkboard menu, an outdoor terrace, and none of the urgency that defines downtown spots. 

Open throughout the day for coffee, lunch, dinner and drinks, it is particularly beloved for a post-pool weekend brunch and, increasingly, a leisurely glass of wine. Brunch here is an à la carte affair, with a menu that changes weekly but reliably features favourites such as croque monsieur, shakshuka and Turkish eggs, alongside what might well be one of the most perfect omelettes in Reykjavík with a handful of varieties to choose from. Portions are generous, often accompanied by a crisp green salad lightly dressed in a French vinaigrette and thick slices of sourdough. 

Coffee is excellent, matcha thoughtfully prepared, and the wine list favours the French, making a glass of Crémant de Bourgogne or a Pinot Noir feel not only appropriate, but almost necessary. It’s a place for friends, couples and families alike; lively, cosy, and the sort of spot where you could easily spend an entire afternoon. You might even spot an Icelandic star or two but here, nobody really bats an eye. 

And that, perhaps, is its charm: a place that feels quietly in-the-know, without ever needing to show it. 

If downtown brunch is about being seen, these are places you go to disappear a little, into a second coffee, into conversation, into the reassuring idea that Reykjavík still has corners that belong to the people who live in it. 

Makona, Borgartún 26, 105 Reykjavík; Kaffihús Vesturbæjar, Hagamelur 67, 107 Reykjavík 

The post Brunch Beyond 101 Reykjavík: Austurbær Versus Vesturbær appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Despite the current global obsession with gritty crime dramas and true crime documentaries, I find myself generally disinterested. Don’t get me wrong: I love crime. I personally live my life by the 21st-century meme-turned-adage “be gay, do crime,” but I admittedly tend to go hard on the former and keep it fairly light on the latter. You know, just your basic civil disobedience, frequent sedition, and casual encouragement to steal from corporate grocery stores. Stuff like that. Preferably no murder. I mean, come on! A normal person killing another normal person for some petty reason, or worse, for no reason at all? Boring. Tedious. Uninspired. That said, I am nothing if not a man of the people, so I will put aside my personal opinions to introduce you to Iceland’s first serial killer. 

Thirst for blood 

The Tale of Axlar-Björn is recorded in the collection of Jón Árnason, who is kinda like the Brothers Grimm of Iceland. Björn of Öxl (or Axlar-Björn as he is known in Icelandic, which sounds like “Axe-Björn” and perfectly fits the sensational serial–killer vibe) is not only considered Iceland’s first serial killer, but also the only one! I’m a bit sceptical of this, and not only because the Icelandic sagas written 300 years prior to this guy are rife with murder, but we’ll let them have this one. Lack of crime is part of Iceland’s brand, after all, and Iceland would be nothing if not for its misinformation-laden internet persona. 

The tale starts out spooky as hell. There is a woman, whose name is of course not given, who is pregnant with her third child when she begins to crave human blood. She tries to resist and keeps it secret until she can’t any longer and confides in her husband. It turns out he’s a pretty good dude and can’t deny his wife anything within his power to give her, so he cuts open his foot and lets her drink his blood. Why the foot I have no idea, but let’s just assume that was her fetish. We don’t kink-shame around here! Then she has nightmares so terrible that the narrator of the story won’t even get into them.  

Eventually, Björn is born and turns out to be a fairly normal kid, if a bit of a little shithead. (This is, unfortunately, normal for a kid.) He is sent to live at the farm of some rich dude nearby to straighten him out. He becomes friends with the other cowherd there as well as the rich dude’s son, Guðmundur. One day, he decides to skip church and sleep in. (Cue ominous music). He has a dream that he’s offered meat by a stranger, of which he eats 18 pieces and suddenly becomes sick. The meat-stranger also gives him directions to a buried treasure that will make him famous. Björn wakes up, follows the instructions and finds an axe. (Cue dramatic dun-dun-dun.) 

Murder most foul 

This is where the story turns from supernatural horror into a classic slasher. That’s a downgrade if you ask me, but hey, this isn’t about me! Björn’s cowherd colleague goes missing and is never found. He marries a servant girl named Steinunn, and they move onto their own farm in Snæfellsnes. They have a pretty flashy amount of horses, like the 16th-century equivalent of a six-car garage full of Porsches, and rumours begin to swirl that these mysteriously wealthy country bumpkins are not only robbers, but murderers.

It was extremely common in those days for folks to seek shelter and hospitality at random farms as they travelled around Iceland. Some dude reports that he stayed there once and found a body under his bed. Realising something sus was going on, he swapped places with the corpse and when Björn sneaked in to axe him in his sleep, the visitor was able to get away. A pair of siblings also stopped there and discovered a creepy old woman whispering a hilariously not-cryptic lullaby to rock a baby to sleep. It goes something like, “Don’t sleep at Murder-Björn’s if you’re nicely dressed / he’ll chop you up and sink the rest / now go to sleep, you little pest.” The brother runs out, leaving his sister to get axed. (Not cool, bro.) The murders continue for years because Björn is besties with the powerful Guðmundur, and no one will accuse him.  

From the axe to the chopping block  

One day, Björn even tries to axe Guðmundur himself. He misses, killing Guðmundur’s horse instead. He escapes, and Steinunn goes to ask Guðmundur to just forget about that whole my-husband-trying-to-murder-you thing. Guðmundur is basically like, “Aight, aight, he’s my bro, so it’s chill. We’re cool.” I’m sorry, but what the actual fuck? The reports eventually reach the sheriff, who confronts Björn at church on Easter Sunday. He asks where the hell he got such fancy clothes, to which Björn is like, “No comment.” However, the onlookers are able to prove the clothes were stolen from a man who’d disappeared years before, and the murderer is basically cooked.  

So Björn confesses to having axed 18 people and sunk their bodies in the pond. He’s sentenced to have all his bones broken and then be beheaded. He accepts this stoically, and in the midst of the brutal punishment, his wife shouts something like, “Oh no, all my husband’s limbs have been smashed!” Björn replies, “All but one, which would be better cut off.” Then he gets the chop. His wife is pregnant, so they let her give birth to their son before they kill her as an accomplice. The son grows up to be a thief and also ends up being unalived for his crimes. I dunno if you can call that a happy ending, but at least there’s some poetic justice?  

The post Axlar-Björn: The Tale Of Iceland’s First Serial Murder appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

If you’re tempted to get into hot water in the northern town of Akureyri, you have two quite different facilities to choose from. 

The first is Sundlaug Akureyrar: a classic Icelandic swimming pool complex. Run by the local municipality, its roots go back to 1897 when locals first dammed a stream to bathe, later adding geothermally heated spring water to make the experience a little less bracing. 

These days the sundlaug boasts four hot tubs, three swimming pools, two wading pools and a cold tub for that heart-stopping plunge after you’ve been in the steam bath. Add some massive plastic tubular water slides, and you’ve got a wonderland of splashy geothermal fun for the whole family.  

Sundlaug Akureyrar is the kind of civic facility that UNESCO had in mind last December when they added Icelandic swimming pool culture to their — take a deep breath here — Representative List Of The Intangible Cultural Heritage Of Humanity. It’s essentially a community centre: parents teach their kids to swim, older residents use it to maintain social connections, and the general townsfolk use the hot pots as a forum to discuss the issues of the day. 

Your other option is Forest Lagoon: the newbie contender. This luxurious facility literally sprang up after workmen encountered hot spring water as they were digging a road tunnel through the Vaðlaheiði mountain. As Icelandic entrepreneurs are never slow on the uptake, soon a conglomerate of businessfolk had conceived an upmarket mountainside bathing facility among the trees, with a view across the fjord.  

Forest Lagoon opened in 2022, enticing visitors with warm waters, cold beers from swim-up bars, and a cool bistro for that post-dip burger. It’s part of the recent rise of high-end geothermal baths which also saw Laugarás Lagoon open last October in south Iceland, and north Iceland’s Earth Lagoon undergo a substantial upgrade at the start of this year. 

Friends, foes or a bit of both?  

So are Sundlaug Akureyrar and Forest Lagoon engaged in a water fight for the same clientele? Or are they operating in two distinct markets — budget bathing and luxury lagooning? Pálína Dagný Guðnadóttir, who manages business operations for Sundlaug Akureyrar, sees the duality of the situation quite clearly. 

“We do see them as competitors,” she says of Forest Lagoon. “But in another sense, they are also partners.” 

That partnership might be neither overt nor deliberate, but Pálína recognises that a rising tide lifts all boats. 

“People come to Iceland to see the northern lights and seek out the lagoons,” she says. “There are all these swimming pools which don’t really do a lot of marketing, but the lagoons are marketing themselves and making a good job of it. People are just realising that there is a cheaper way to do it.” 

Cheaper is right; adult admission of 1.400 ISK to Sundlaug Akureyrar is less than a fifth of the cost of basic entrance to Forest Lagoon. But as Pálína points out, the sundlaug is run as a civic service to promote a healthy community, not as a revenue generator. In fact, the bulk of its running costs are met by Akureyri council. 

Photo by John Pearson

Bullish business 

Tomas Popelka looks after marketing for Forest Lagoon, and views the relationship between his upmarket facility and the sundlaug across the fjord slightly differently to Pálína. 

“Even though it’s the same thing,” Tomas says, referring to the act of soaking in hot water, “it’s such a different product. I don’t think we would see them as a competitor. I don’t think the sundlaug is taking any business from us, and I don’t think we are taking any business from them.” 

It’s been a good few years for Forest Lagoon. Thanks to some 180,000 visitors through the turnstiles last year, revenue rose from 1 billion ISK in 2024 to 1.2 billion in 2025 — enough to give confidence in a substantial expansion of the business. In September last year they extended the lagoon to increase capacity, and have now embarked on a major building project to add a spa and a four-star hotel, both with private access to a further lagoon extension.  

Ice bath challenge 

For Sundlaug Akureyrar, however, ideas for future development are less bullish. The number of users is healthy — 435,000 in 2025, which is nearly 22 times the population of the town. But despite that, Pálína says that there is very little long-term planning for the sundlaug, partly due to politics regarding the use of public money.  

Some sundlaug customers are pushing for facilities such as expensive Finnish-style dry saunas and ice baths — ideas perhaps more at home in the more upmarket lagoons. Even the sale of alcohol has been mooted: “I don’t think that will ever happen,” Pálína says. Given the health-focused ethos of sundlaug culture, it would be interesting to see UNESCO’s reaction to the introduction of boozing.  

Perhaps it’s best if Iceland’s lagoons and sundlaug facilities follow the lead set in Akureyri, respecting each other’s cultural boundaries and peacefully coexisting at arm’s length. 

John Pearson is an Akureyri-based writer and photographer. You can follow his work at johnpearson.co. 

The post A View From The North: Sundlaug Showdown appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

In a country where every fifth person has arrived from somewhere else, the topic of immigration and adaptation is embedded in the collective psyche. Iceland-based Mexican artist Hugo Llanes addresses this through humour and punk, blending cultural references from both his home country and his adopted one to create something entirely new. Bonita, his multimedia installation now on view at the Reykjavík Art Museum’s D-Gallery brings together sound and video, sculpture, textile, lenticular prints and more, all built around a steel scaffold as structure that serves as the exhibition’s backbone and central metaphor.

“I wanted to have this body structure that is temporary, that is not always fixed, that can be removed, that somehow implies being under construction,” Hugo explains. “I think this process of adaptation is being under construction. It’s not a final position or structure or platform, but something that is just temporary.” Running through the scaffolding, in a room cast in muted industrial green, are queuing belts with text, or subtitles, as Hugo calls them. Nearby, three buckets filled with Lýsi pills, Iceland’s infamous cod liver oil supplement, glow from within like gold. 

At the heart of the show is Bonita, Hugo’s alter ego that exists in the liminal space between cultures. “Bonita is this space, but also this being that lives between cultures, between translations and interpretations,” he explains.

Born from experiments at Kling & Bang, Bonita has since evolved into a costumed figure made from black belts, deliberately stripped of any ethnic or geographic markers. “I wanted to break through it being depicted through body features, something that resembles somebody from a particular place,” Hugo says. “I didn’t want people to recognise that this person is from Latin America, for example, or is brown, things like that.”

That in-between existence is visualised through a series of lenticular prints, where Bonita appears against landscape paintings by one of Iceland’s most prominent painters, Kjarval. “I was first thinking who could be Diego Rivera or Frida Kahlo for Icelanders or for Iceland? Then I was like, ‘Kjarval,’” Hugo snaps his fingers. “Kjarval is somebody who has managed to be a reference point for Icelandic art globally,” he explains. “Without Kjarval, the piece wouldn’t be or make sense. I wanted to juxtapose this being that is from many, many sources in front of something that also originates from many sources.” 

Brúni og hvíti…vááá!

One of the exhibition’s central works is a reinterpretation of “Luxor y Mohawk” by Las Ultrasonicas, a female punk band from 1990s Mexico City whose original song told the story of a punk couple navigating prejudice and conservative society of those days. Hugo commissioned GRÓA, an Icelandic punk band known for their DIY-approach and unmatched energy to cover the song. The result is more, as Hugo puts it, “a situational cover” — the pit of the original song is preserved, but the story is completely reinterpreted: it is now situated in Iceland, and sung in Icelandic. The new song is about a biracial gay Mexican-Icelandic couple, where a Mexican partner moves to Iceland and the Icelandic partner introduces the Mexican partner to a new culture, the two are referred to as “brúni” (“brownie”) and “hvíti” (“blondie”). 

“I wanted to give a whole new sense of contemporary Iceland into it by taking and by mirroring two sources to create this hybrid,” Hugo shares. 

The piece consists of a three-minute punk track, with lyrics displayed on queuing belts in English, Icelandic and Spanish, followed by seven minutes of silence, on a continuous loop.

Lost and found in translation

Even though the exhibition employs different media, at its core it is strongly language-based. Hugo displays pages from his first Icelandic textbook, Íslenska fyrir alla, something every immigrant who has ever tried to master the language will recognise. Also on display are his first work permit and a CV translated into Icelandic. He draws attention to similarities between words in the two languages, highlighting their overlaps. Take, for example, hola, which means “hi” in Spanish and “a hole” in Icelandic, a contrast he highlights by carving out words and making holes in them.

In another work, Hugo reinterprets a painting by the Icelandic artist Stórval, known for his naive sheep-and-mountain motifs. Instead of sewing horns on sheep, he uses the word “fé,” which in Icelandic means money, livestock, and wealth. “When I approach this word, I don’t read ‘fé,’” he explains. I read ‘fe’ and ‘fe’ in Spanish means faith.” 

Hugo admits he has long been fascinated by discovering objects that connect to his home culture in Iceland. Some of his finds, like the book Undir mexíkósku mána about an Icelandic family trip to Mexico, or elements from DVDs he found in a Kjötborg shop in Vesturbær, are reimagined in the exhibition. In one piece, Hugo takes lyrics from a live DVD of Celia Cruz, one of the most iconic Latin American artists, and literally translates them into Icelandic and English, placing them on queuing belts, or narrates a telenovela in Icelandic and English as it would be narrated in Spanish. 

“I got these two materials for 600 krónur in a corner store in Vesturbær. I thought, ‘wow, these coincidences that made me get this material in Iceland have to be part of the show,’” he smiles.

In another such coincidence, Hugo’s ÚTL ticket has been enlarged and reproduced as a rug, hand tufted with white Mexican and black Icelandic wool. “It’s an enlargement of my real ticket, when I went to collect my permanent residency card in 2025,” he explains. In the piece, Hugo draws attention to the cultural and economic importance of wool in both Iceland and Mexico, while also addressing the process foreigners must go through to be accepted into the country.

Ongoing adaptation

“[The show] seeks beyond that feeling of just being a foreigner,” Hugo says at the end of our conversation. “Because I’m still a foreigner, but I live here so I’m no longer a foreigner,” he shrugs. 

That in-between state runs through the exhibition. Hugo marks his physical presence in Iceland by writing norður, “north” in Icelandic, dozens of times on a white pillar with his non-dominant hand, reminding himself where he is and where he comes from. 

He agrees that fitting into a new culture and trying to navigate a new, strange language can be incredibly difficult. But he seems to have made a conscious choice not to anchor himself in the frustration and resentment immigration can bring. Instead, he opens his personal story to talk about these challenges.

“What I am trying to kind of pick, I’m not saying that everybody is the same, or that everybody has to seek beyond that,” Hugo says. “I think we all have different strategies, and this is my strategy — use humour, use punk, use vulnerability, to kind of pass through all these ways of being in inhabiting contemporary Iceland.” 

Eight years in, Hugo still finds himself mid-construction. “Linguistically, it will be an ongoing exercise for some time in terms of adaptation,” he says. “I see the scaffolding system as just a stage — as under construction. I don’t know how the construction is gonna end.”

Bonita is on view at the Reykjavík Art Museum until May 3. Hugo Llanes will lead a guided tour of the exhibition in Spanish on April 16 at 20:00. It will be interpreted into Icelandic.

The post Hugo Llanes Brings Scaffolding, Punk, And Glowing Lýsi To Hafnarhús appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

One of Iceland’s traditional harbingers of spring, the birds were spotted by sisters Halla and Unnur Ingólfsdóttir in the cliffs south of the lighthouse in Grímsey. Around the same time, Björn Aðalsteinsson saw one at Hafnarhólmi islet in Borgarfjörður Eystri, in the Eastfjords.

Their arrival in early April is typical, as puffins are often seen returning to Iceland during the first weeks of the month.

“Puffins have been seen there as early as late March, if I remember correctly. They usually arrive earlier in Grímsey and in the east at Hafnarhólmi. There are relatively long-term records from those areas compared to here in the south, in the Westman Islands. We expect to see them in the Westman Islands next week,” says Erpur Snær Hansen, director of the South Iceland Nature Research Centre.

Snow has been melting in recent days due to warmer weather, so puffins should have no trouble accessing their burrows.

“They are not afraid of snow,” Erpur Snær adds. “They even nest under snow; I’ve seen them beneath a snow layer in June 2011. They simply stay in their burrows and dig their way through the snow. There was about a 10-centimetre layer.”

Severe storms have affected the southern North Atlantic, where part of Iceland’s seabird population winters. Earlier this spring, we reported that thousands of dead puffins had washed ashore along European coastlines. Erpur Snær believes this may impact breeding this spring.

“A portion of our seabirds spend the winter in that area. The entire Icelandic population moults there at this time, when these storms have been occurring. We are somewhat concerned that we may have lost some birds at sea during these conditions,” he says.

The post Puffins Return To Iceland appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

“Dear relatives and friends, those who have been messaging me to check if I am really dead, that’s not the case and I’m alive and well,” he wrote on Facebook. 

Sölvi accuses two women of being responsible. One of them has been reported to the police by seven different individuals for stalking, with Sölvi being one of them. 

Morgunblaðið has formally apologised for Sölvi, his family and its readers for the incident. The paper issued a statement on their website.  

“The announcement was reported to Morgunblaðið in a normal way with nothing that indicated that the information was false. This kind of deception is fortunately rare, but Morgunblaðið will exhaust all ways to find out how this happened to stop this from repeating. The relevant authorities will be contacted for future proceedings.” 

Shortly after the publication, the Suðurnes Police arrested a woman accused of reporting the fake death in relation to an investigation into the person’s stalking charges.

The post Man Wakes Up To See Own Obituary  appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

As originally reported by RÚV, chief Icelandair flight officer Linda Gunnarsdóttir said that the incident is taken seriously, claiming that the company was not informed of the act nor permitted. Linda told RÚV that this was the pilot’s last flight before retirement.

Icelandair has issued an apology to Vestmanneyjar residents.

On Sunday, news broke out that the airplane’s passengers had been notified of the flyover. According to the air navigation services Avians, the pilot had requested a diversion from the flight path which was granted. 

“It was a wonderful experience,” one passenger accounted in conversation with RÚV, describing that passengers had applauded the pilot extensively. 

But Icelandair is not touched. As RÚV reports, senior vice president of flight operations Arnar Már Magnússon sent out a companywide email describing the incident, stating that such an offense would not be tolerated. According to Arnar, company lawyers reported the incident to the police, and the matter will be investigated further. 

The post Icelandair Pilot Flies Dangerously Low Across Vestmannaeyjar appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

This is far from what the purpose of newsrooms was conceived as. Not only that, there are indicators that readers actually don’t want the stuff they are being fed this way. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025, readers want the news media to “provide depth rather than chasing algorithms for clicks.”  

This magazine saw exactly this materialise in our last cover feature on recently deceased former Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson, probably the most consequential politician in Iceland’s modern history. Twenty years ago, such an article would have been an input into a discourse on his legacy. So far, it is the only article in the Icelandic media that tries to come to terms with the man’s legacy. The article did nothing on social media platforms, yet it was our most-read article in the past month. 

To this publication, it is a reminder that journalists have a duty to set agendas and not cede that to unseen, undisclosed algorithms of gigantic tech companies, not only because those algorithms serve the business models of said companies, not the readers, but also because those algorithms do not seem to be aligned any more — if they ever were — with what readers really want, not to mention need.  

Wait, this was supposed to be about the 10 cutest waterfalls in Iceland. 

The post Publisher’s Note: The Top 10 Cutest Waterfalls In Iceland appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

We had been asked, in the last few months, to explain why so many tourists stand on a highway instead of visiting museums, galleries, coffee shops, parks, anything worthwhile. Then, this week, I received an itinerary from an American engineer visiting our household, and lo and behold, Sun Voyager was top of the list for something to do in Reykjavík. Not a single museum was on the list.

The list was too dumb to imagine. No human, even trying to be dumb, could dumb this hard. I grabbed my laptop, and typed in “three-day itinerary for Reykjavik” into Google, and clicked that much-reviled AI icon. Every word matched our American guest’s itinerary.

Google doesn’t share information about how many people have obtained itineraries for Reykjavík, but, again, no human source would send a human they cared for to this specific location. There’s a Chicago saying, “Walk east until your hat floats.” It’s a way of telling people to fuck off politely because Lake Michigan is east, and Midwesterners love politely telling you to fuck off. Walk north until you see Sun Voyager is somehow more mean-spirited, but it means the same thing. Except Google has taken a missive literally.

This is all to say, Iceland allows you objective proof that Google provides bogus results that ruins vacations and sometimes kills people. Great news though, Google and Facebook also kill newspapers.

This month, Statistics Iceland revealed that advertising on Google and Facebook topped 15 billion ISK in 2024. What do you get with that ad spend? For one thing, Icelandic companies pay no taxes to advertise using Google or Facebook. Unlike our neighbours in Europe, Google and Facebook have no obligation to pay a surcharge toward the local media. They also face no liability for things like promoting tourism  in lethal deathtraps, (by algorithm, not intention), for example, the bucket list item of standing on a black beach with sneaker waves and taking a selfie. Advertising on Google and Facebook gets you metrics and ROI that you can show your boss. Bullshit metrics but tax-free.

Throughout this issue, you’ll note that we are coming to terms with our digital age, specifically Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Alphabet (Google and YouTube). You’ll read about an Iceland-only alternative to Facebook, called Slapp, about our local pop star, Laufey, a Berklee-trained musician who rose to fame using social media, and our mayor, who appears to have been displaced by a political machine reacting, I believe naively, to the Manosphere. We don’t present easy solutions, but the fallout of this digital culture does become more and more of a focus.

If you’re here three days, get to the National Museum of Iceland, get to Árbæjarsafn, get to the National Gallery, at a minimum. Get out to the D Gallery at Hafnarhús and see Hugo Llanes’s exhibit. Our Best of Reykjavik magazine dedicates a large portion to museums, and we honestly researched the hell out of this. So if you live here or want actual insight, check that. Do not stand on a highway staring at skidding Land Cruisers.  When you’re done with your vacation, having discovered that Google is a tepid, toxic turd, consider finding other sources of information so that you don’t waste your life. Alternatively, walk north until you find your own true Sun Voyager.

The post Walk North Until You Find Your True Sun Voyager appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

On my first trip to Reykjavik, I met Sigtryggur Baldursson at the Iceland Music office in March 2024. He touted Laufey’s success. I was already familiar with the breakout single “… From the Start” from her 2023 second album, played in heavy rotation on my favourite local public radio station WFUV-FM. Since then, Laufey’s audience has exponentially expanded. I noticed Laufey being touted in the U.S. media as the next big thing in pop music. 

In May 2024, Laufey sold out two nights at Manhattan’s storied Radio City Music Hall. This past November, she topped that earlier feat by filling up Madison Square Garden for two concerts. 

The timeless social media star 

Laufey’s overall success builds on the generational influences of Judy Garland, the businesswoman savvy of Madonna, and the pop ambition and work ethic of Taylor Swift. But the 26-year-old’s very old-fashioned music is the opposite of what a stereotyped Gen-Z might find appealing. Her original lyrics are romantic and wholesome, more Julie London singing in the 1950s from the Cole Porter songbook than today’s Cardi B, more Debbie Gibson, the G-rated early 1980s pop singer than the 1990s saucy feminist girl-power group the Spice Girls. 

This success didn’t come out of nowhere. Even though she couldn’t tour because of Covid, social media launched her career. What is really intriguing about the two-time Grammy winner is that Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir writes and performs original, often big band, music, music my parents — who were teenagers at the outbreak of World War II — would have loved. 

Laufey’s natural affinity for social media became evident at the beginning of the pandemic. Coinciding with the lockdown, her TikTok videos went viral, demonstrating musical talent and personality. She found on TikTok adoring teens not bent on being contemporary cool in a mean-girl environment. The nerds became rebels for liking old-time jazz. 

Social media played the key role. Her social media follower numbers tell the story: 9.8 million (TikTok); 8 million (Spotify); 7 million (Instagram); and 2.6 million (YouTube). 

Photo by Art Bicnick

Largest homecoming in history 

On back-to-back nights, March 13 and 14, 2026, I immersed myself in the Laufey phenomenon. A Business Iceland/ American-Icelandic Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event explored whether Laufey’s success in creating an international brand could be replicated in other industries. 

I then grabbed a ticket for the first of two homecoming concerts at Kórinn, an indoor multipurpose sports arena in Kópavogur within Reykjavík’s Capital City area, which attracted 36,000 attendees, almost 10 percent of Iceland’s population, according to local media reports. By the numbers, this is the largest homecoming concert in history, surpassing the 2008 Náttúra concert from Björk and Sigur Rós, a free concert which drew 30,000 attendees. 

Although nearly all of her songs are sung in English, about 20 minutes into the concert I attended, Laufey asked if any of the audience were from places other than Iceland. Surprising to me, I wasn’t alone, as a smattering of hands went up and cheers came from the actions around me. She urged us to “enjoy our beautiful country,” but apologised that she planned to speak between songs only in Icelandic. 

Throughout the concert, Laufey strummed an acoustic guitar, sat at the piano for a few numbers, and ran a bow across the cello on another, an instrument she played at 15 for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. 

This was no ordinary concert. A string section and her band, background singers, and choreographed dancers flawlessly executed a meticulously planned stage production. You forgot you were sitting in a nondescript steel sports arena that had surprisingly great acoustics. Fashionista Laufey made three costume changes to reflect the music mood, such as donning a sequined flapper dress for the jazz club set. 

The business of Laufey 

At a business event the week of the concert titled “Laufey: Rise of a Global Brand in the U.S. Market,” Laufey’s twin sister Júnia Lín Jónsdottir, who serves as her artistic director, explained that their elaborate stage shows were no different from when their imaginations ran wild at four years old with their Barbie playhouse. 

Moderated by Icelandic venture capitalist Helga Valfells and Icelandic musician/Iceland Music senior advisor Sigtryggur Baldursson, the discussion explored “how Laufey has achieved a strong position in the world’s largest and most competitive consumer market, how the competitive landscape and visible opportunities have evolved, and what lessons can be drawn from her remarkable journey,” to quote Business Iceland’s press release. 

Key to Laufey’s success was her team’s decision to retain all of her intellectual property and publishing, clearly learning from Taylor Swift’s early career mistakes, which were corrected after protracted litigation, as well as going through the trouble of re-recording her most popular earlier albums. 

Max Gredinger, Laufey’s Brooklyn, NY-based manager since 2021, explained their decision to avoid the major label route that most A-list artists seek, allowing them to control all aspects of their careers. The music business calls such contracts “360 deals.” 

“From the beginning, it wasn’t like, ‘we are going to stick it to the man,’” Max said, adding that for some stars, the three majors’ machines work very well. Laufey has been supported by a bootstrapped operation. As they began getting booked in larger venues, the productions’ budgets organically grew, attracting tour support from other brands. 

Max is a partner in Foundations Artist Management, which oversees the careers of 30 artists. Although his company employs social media specialists, the manager said Laufey is more talented than all of them. 

While Laufey is not signed to a major label, her three full-length albums are distributed in all formats by Sony, which in 2021 acquired the previously independent AWAL (an acronym for Artists Without a Label), just when Laufey’s career launched. Sony/AWAL was among the founders of The Laufey Foundation to help young musicians get the same chances she had. Inspired by her own experience with great mentors and education, the foundation gives grants and top-quality gear to youth music programs around the world. Other founders of the charity include the philanthropic arms of concert promoter AEG Presents, piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons. Since then, guitar manufacturer Gibson and Laufey’s music publisher Warner/Chappell signed on as benefactors of the foundation. 

Based on what I’ve seen, I will bet that Laufey’s international brand will continue to transcend preconceived notions of what works in the digital age, as well as modern music tastes. 

The post Laufey’s March 2026 Homecoming Was More Than Concerts appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The host has no idea what the answer is. None of the staff does either. In a comedy show that otherwise bathed in Temu and Ozempic jokes, this was a solid jab.

I became curious, though; who exactly was the target? Why would the country’s largest city not know its own mayor, the executive over the largest employer in the nation, the City of Reykjavík? The joke hit especially hard in our household because in December I had been at a function in Vesturbæjarskóli, an elementary school in 101 Reykjavík, and the mayor joined. When our principal announced her presence, the parents surrounding me all acknowledged they had no idea who the mayor was — we couldn’t identify which woman in the crowd was the active mayor.

Between the time I set up our interview, and the date the interview was conducted, a final insult came the mayor’s way. Former professional soccer player, former Independence Party parliamentary candidate, and well-liked co-founder of Kex Hostel Pétur Marteinsson won first chair of the Social Democrats, beating out the sitting mayor. Discussion downtown was that the prime minister’s office had presented the winner flowers, suggesting that Pétur was Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir’s preferred candidate, no matter the fact that Kristrún in fact presented both candidates with flowers.

I walked into our interview a week after this defeat, to a mayor who knew she had three more months to serve, and who had been replaced as the first chair of her party to a relative newcomer. Other than brief cordialities, our interview took place entirely in English. A political advisor was present, but at only one point did he intervene. While our interview was scheduled for a half hour, the mayor spoke freely for closer to an hour. The only deflection came early on.

The deflection

Without tact or grace, I asked the mayor how she lost. “I am confused about the political party, how it works.” I stated bluntly. “Pétur seems nice, he owns a good bar, Kaffi Vest, but I don’t understand what issue he defeated you on. What issues were discussed? You’ve been in the party for what — 20 years — and he joined just recently?”

The mayor does not take the bait. She acknowledges she has been active in the party for 15 years, and indeed a member for 20 after following Ingibjörg Solrún Gísladóttir into the party, but says, “We need new people. I think it’s just really important that people engage in politics and discuss how we can make our society better, and the more people who engage, the better.”

When pressed she continues, “I have been active, yes, but that doesn’t matter. We need new people.”

I will later speak with Professor Gyða Margrét Pétursdóttir of the University of Iceland who will offer her opinion on the new candidate overtaking a sitting mayor: “Miðflokkurinn [the Centre Party] has been rising in the polls, and it might seem that some of the other parties are trying to appeal to the potential voters of Miðflokkurinn by selecting men that embody typical masculine traits, i.e., have connections to the worlds of sports/football and are quite well known. Yeah, men that can appeal to the men’s men, as you write.”

Without that context, I’ll be left at a loss. Certainly, the mayor, even so soon after a defeat, doesn’t note or highlight the optics or contextualise. She has lost, but the party has won more voters. Voter turnout was unusually high.

Finally, she concedes one point, “I mean, I’m the fourth woman [mayor] who is like one and a half, [or] two years. Yeah, just one has had two terms. I think that is something that someone at the university might be able to look into. I don’t have the time to reflect really a lot about it, but I’m the third women in this century that gets this opportunity in the last years of the term, [a partial term]. And then there comes a guy….”

“Like a glass cliff, like Fortune 500 companies in America?” I ask. The mayor moves on.

I will later go into detail with, indeed, someone from a university, asking help from the University of Iceland and Professor of Gender Studies Gyða Margrét to explain why pushing a qualified woman out of office doesn’t meet the criteria of a glass cliff.

She will note that Iceland has had a major glass cliff politician: Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who served immediately after the 2008 crash. Jóhanna fits the mold slightly better, as she was abundantly qualified to serve as prime minister, and her successor, Sigmundur Davið, would bring the nation ignominy when his name would feature in the Panama Papers while he was serving. After leaving office, Sigmundur Davið would go on to start the far-right Centre Party.

The professor of gender studies will then detail a difficult conclusion that is reflected in the city’s political discussion, “I would relate the second point to retrogressive mobilisation (vehicle of the anti-gender politics and deals with how the far right has managed to sway the political field retrogressively). But Heiða Björg’s position potentially relates to that and the narrative about women taking over (prime minister, president, leaders of the coalition parties, bishop…). Analysing the discourse of crisis in masculinity (which is part of anti-gender politics) is helpful here as it might seem that some might feel that women’s rights/status/position is at the expense of men, hence we have to make space for men.”

Retrogressive mobilisation is the academic explanation for the current wave. As the mayor noted, this will be the subject of papers for quite some time. Living in the moment, though, it is overwhelming.

Fifteen months

“I have 15 months and I’m using it all,” the mayor says. She is ready to talk her view of the duty of government. “I know there was a joke,” she says referring to the Áramótaskaup skit, “that people didn’t know my name. I mean, the people in their city know who is the mayor, usually, or they don’t. And those who don’t, don’t care. Those who care, those who watch the news and follow the politics, they know, the others not, maybe not so interested in it. And that’s, of course, something that we have to work with. Why are so many not interested in what we are doing?”

“We have been making a lot of tough decisions that matter a lot to the people, even though they might not see it right away. I know it matters. We have been for those who have the least pay, those who maybe are poor, they have a little bit better, at least with what we have been doing,” she says roughly gesturing toward the old school Social Democratic philosophies of redistribution of wealth, being honest about taxation.

“I think [voters] should talk to all the parties who are running and ask critical questions. And I mean, what are you going to do to make my life easier? How are you going to make the city more wholesome and good to live in? I mean some parties, and also people in their society are using immigration to make people afraid, that is really dangerous.”

“Are you going to name the party? Miðflokkurinn?” I ask. “Will you rule out working with the Centre Party?” I always ask if political figures will specifically address the obvious right-wing party, and I rarely get a response.

“Absolutely, and I have said that all the time. I don’t see, how they are talking, in the parliament, that we have anything in common with them, actually, not in those politics. I mean, unless they change their politics, I don’t say that we can work with them in the city because the main task is to make a good society. If you’re a city politician, that is your task to make a good society for everyone, integrate everyone into society, see that everyone gets the opportunity to be, to live their best possible life. And if you’re not on that, if you’re trying to get rid of people from your society, or making people not have opportunities to participate, that’s not our politics.”

The mayor continues, explaining why a coalition should not be formed with the Centre Party, “Those who are in the majority, they have the most influence on how the city is developing, and if we could get a right-wing majority in the city council, that could really change the city’s atmosphere. I think maybe we are not welcoming enough as it is for new [Icelanders]. We have to do more to reach out for people who are coming here and trying to introduce our city and our society and learn and how we can, how you can like flourish here, because we want people to flourish in our city and, and if we find way to do that, we can get so much more done, more happiness. And integration is also like both ways. We made that now very clear, our majority accepted the first like multicultural strategy for Reykjavík. So it’s not only those who move here who have to learn. We also have to learn, and we have to adapt also and, and, of course, culture is always thinking, and part of the painting is that we are now a multicultural society in Reykjavík.”

Since I returned to the Grapevine in August, the Centre Party has been at the forefront of the political conversation. For all that, I have heard very few alternatives. The mayor’s full-throttle defence of basic Social Democratic progressive politics may seem old hat, but it is the first straightforward defence of basic values I’ve heard from a politician in Iceland in a decade.

Free busses and school lunches

Our discussion veers, briefly, to our own kids, and my son’s bus trips for language lessons. Suddenly, the reason why nobody knows the mayor’s name becomes crystal clear.

“What we’re going to propose, on Tuesday, is free busses for children 16 and under,” the mayor notes. I had not read of this proposal before our meeting. “Then the kids don’t have to call their parents asking for money for the bus.”

To be clear, the mayor proposed motion for free busses for children 16 and under. She mentions this to me on Friday. On the following Tuesday, the city council approves the initiative, with a goal of free busses for every school child 16 and under.

This bold policy does not make an impact in the news. For all the legwork required for such a policy, the payoff in public attention was a brief Visir article and a single paragraph in a right-leaning newspaper, essentially a cut-and-paste of the city’s press release. According to the Wayback Machine, the Vísir article disappears from the front page of the website almost immediately.

The state-run media, RÚV, did not cover the legislation. They did write up a survey that noted the Social Democratic Party and the Independence Party were shifting in popularity, Independence at 32.7, Social Dems at 29.4 percent. Using the Wayback Machine, I can see the focus in Visir was on the Centre Party’s search for leadership, with quotes from a right-wing podcaster. (Despite controlling the media narrative, the Centre Party sat at 9.3 percent.)

You would think free busses for school kids 16 and under would be newsworthy. It’s a public service. It’s not an unusually complicated idea. In a post-information news cycle, a policy that affects a staggering amount of the population was far less worthy than coverage of a podcast bro.

Complications arise. The city council approves the idea, but our city busses involve multiple municipalities. Despite an approval from the Reykjavik City Council, there is no evidence, at the time of print, that this policy will actually be put into effect. Given the lack of public interest, it is unlikely Reykjavik will push this policy to the finish line.

As our interview continues, I see the mayor that I have seen at public events — the listener and note-taker. She asks me detailed questions about raising children in Iceland, how our children get to sports, the obstacles. She’s curious about the effects of emailing in this country using a last name. (Spoiler: In my experience, if you’re not using a patronymic, you’re not likely getting a reply.)

“I will say my kids have never eaten better school lunches,” I blurt out at one point.

“The chef at Vesturbæjarskóli is great! He could be at a restaurant, but we found him,” the mayor notes. Her political advisor jumps into the game. “Heiða Björg played a large role in school lunches.”

The mayor nods. “I took a debate about that. And the Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Independence Party) were not for that. They think that the parents should pay for the food.” She goes on, “One year after we passed school lunches they made a survey, and it’s just been a huge success. There are no noodle soups any longer in the schools for the kids who can’t afford their meals. There was actually almost nothing negative.”

We talk about school lunches, comparing programs in Iceland to those in Sweden and Finland. The mayor speaks in massive, paragraph-length sentences, usually resolving with the idea that helping all is a public good. I come to realise she is the rarest politician in the world: someone who believes she can help people.

Talk straight to the people

“This is my social democratic movement,” she says at one point. “We have to see if something changes. But I hope not, really hope not. I think a lot of people who identify as social democrats in Iceland think like this, and we want a more fair society. My youngest is soon 18, but I’m happy my taxes can freely go to helping children to get the best opportunities in their lives. I mean, absolutely. Why not? Why should I just think about my kids? My happiness depends on others’ happiness too. Like if their society is working, and people are genuinely happy, my life is better.”

At no point does the mayor waver in her convictions. As it turns out, I will revisit City Hall repeatedly, for fact checks, for photos for this article, before we run the interview. I will see the mayor meeting with concerned citizens angry that their neighbours’ trash is in their yard. I will see, repeatedly, the mayor running to help with a public housing initiative that will go almost completely uncovered in the local media. The mayor will actually volunteer to come to the Grapevine Music Awards and give out the Artist of the Year award.

Then, as we prepare to go to print, the first positive description I have read about her will appear in the website for former lifestyle magazine Mannlíf, on April 6, 2026. It will be a public letter from Ragnar Erling Hermannsson, a man who has struggled with homelessness, who met with the mayor while eating at the charity Samhjálp. His impression was very close to mine. He notes that this mayor has a way of listening that is almost shocking for a public figure. Also, like me, he can’t get the Áramótaskaup skit out of his head. He addresses that skit in his letter:

“The woman you made fun of is the same one who came to us at the Samhjálp cafeteria, sat down with us, and listened with sincerity. She is the one who helped those who could least afford it. She is the one who showed us respect when we had little left but hope. It’s easy to mock those in power from a distance. It’s much harder to meet people in real life — and you did, Heiða Björg.”

There is a melancholy as we close our discussion. City Hall is a strange place when elected officials prepare to leave. While the employees cannot go on record regarding the mayor, it is clear she is well-liked in the office.

“I would have liked to get a second term,” the mayor tells me. “But still, I can use my knowledge now to be a better councilor, also, because now I know more about the city than I did before, even though I was a part of the council. I think it is really important that if you get the opportunity to serve as a mayor, to talk straight to the people.”

For all our conversation, on and off the record, the mayor never breaks. She never relents in her optimism, toward her city, her office, and her political party. For me though, her departure seems more ominous. When I leave after our photo shoot, saying goodbye for now to the city office staff, I confess that I can’t imagine being interested in meeting Heiða Björg’s successor.

The post The Mayor Left In The Cold: An Interview With Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The sun is shining, there’s a new issue of the Grapevine out — what could be better?

Tonight (April 10), at 17:00, artist Telma Har opens her exhibition Sjúkleg streita, or Traumatic tension, at SIND Gallery. Exploring her personal experiences of stress, especially the stress and burden that come from caregiving, the artist works with collage, digital media, and sculpture to create expressive, often colourful works. At 20:00, classically-trained pianist & indie musician Ásthildur Ákadóttir and guitarist & composer Brynjar Daðason play with their new project — ghostglitter — alongside Jdubs, the project of synth designer & producer Joshua Wilkinson, at Mengi. Later, at 21:00, dance music duo KUSK & Óviti play Stúdentakjallarinn with up-and-coming electronic artist Lára.

On Saturday, a few exhibition openings are happening about town — you can read all about those down below! But, as is the progression of life and art, there are also exhibition closings this weekend: from 13:00 to 17:00 is your last chance to see the exhibition H.f. Radio — The Day Radio Became Reality at Loftskeytastöðin. This March marked 100 years since the very first radio broadcast in Iceland, and this exhibition is in the very space from which the broadcast came. A retrospective on the history of radio broadcasting in Iceland, visitors can see vintage technology and learn about the early days of radio.

In the evening, grassroots festival Hátíðni hosts their first “Smátíðni” of the year at 19:30! Artists Einakróna, Andervel, & Chum n Bass will take the stage in the performance that will fundraise for the festival, which has been happening in Borðeyri since 2019. Later, Icelandic synth legend Hermigervill will be Straumur‘s guest this week at Kaffibarinn. The show starts at 21:30, and is free, as always!

Group exhibition — Press Photographs of the Year

Opens April 11 — 15:00 — Reykjavík Museum of Photography — Free entry

To mark the achievement of press photographers this year, awards for six categories of photography will be handed out for the year 2025: news, daily life, sports, portrait, environment, editorial, and series. After the awards, the photographs will remain in an exhibition until May 17, allowing all to see and celebrate the skill of our industry’s press photographers. ISH

Studio Brynjar & Veronika — Constructed Landscape 

Opens April 11 — 16:00 — H,A,K,K Gallery — Free entry

In this exhibition, the designers blur the lines between furniture and sculpture. Studio Brynjar & Veronika combine the versatile yet fast-spreading western balsam poplar with the centuries-old, environmentally friendly method of heat-treating the wood. Pulling inspiration and material from Icelandic nature, they present proof that artists and builders can use wood sourced in Iceland. ISH 

Þórdís Erla Zoëga — Domestic Sci-fi 

Opens April 11 — 17:00 — BERG Contemporary — Free entry

We all began our year with the artist Þórdís Erla Zoëga as she took over more than 500 billboards in town with her work Sólarhringur in this year’s Auglýsingahlé. Now, you can catch her work at BERG in her solo-show Domestic Sci-fi. As the artist explores the effects of technology on our natural world, she works with AI, processing AI images and predicted outcomes, alongside a work continuing her investigation of the effects of blue light on the circadian rhythm. ISH 

Matthildur Fest Fundraiser 

April 12 — 15:00 to 23:00 — Bíó Paradís  — Free to enter, but donate! 

If you haven’t heard of Matthildur Skaðaminnkun, they’re a local harm-reduction organisation that sets up stations at raves and festivals, providing literally life-saving offerings, such as test strips and Narcan, alongside advocacy and education. To help the Matthildur volunteers keep doing what they’re doing, a fundraising event for them will take over Bíó Paradís with an art fair, performances, an auction, DJs, and more! To learn more about them, check out matthildurskadaminnkun.is. ISH 

The post Grapevine Events: Matthildur Fundraiser, Press Photography Awards, HAKK Opening, And More appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Keflavík is an unusually long town of residential buildings that lives in the shadow of the runway. Let’s be honest: how often do you actually visit of your own will? Most reluctant visitors pass through only when a flight is delayed or cancelled, grabbing snacks, killing time, weighing options. 

But it turns out that beyond departures and arrivals, Keflavík has its own attractions to offer: naturally, there’s a pool; then there’s the Icelandic Museum of Rock ‘n’ Roll (the name says it all); Viking World, though technically in Njarðvík, is a must-stop for history buffs, with its impressive replica of a Viking ship; a quirky Giantess Cave, where you can try on the shoes of an actual troll; and the Duus Museum, a cultural hub housing two museums under one roof: the Reykjanes Art Museum and the Reykjanes Heritage Museum. One ticket gets you into both, and it’s hard to think of a better place to spend a rather uneventful Sunday afternoon. 

The Heritage Museum currently hosts a delightfully odd exhibition on Icelandic collectables, including collections of pens, hats, and other small objects, like plastic bags, talking about design and consumption (take my word, it’s more fascinating than it sounds). Meanwhile, the Art Museum has long offered a well-curated programme, and its current poetic, sensory exhibition stayed with me long after I left Keflavík. A few weeks later, I called the artist and the curator. 

Change is constant

Herefrom Thereto Therefrom Hereto (or Héðan þangað þaðan hingað in Icelandic) is an exhibition by contemporary artist Tumi Magnússon, curated by Gavin Morrison, curator, writer, and former director of the Skaftfell Art Center in Seyðisfjörður. Both are not particularly easy to catch in Keflavík — Tumi has been living in Copenhagen for the past 20 years and Gavin has spent the last five in the U.S. The two first met in early 2000s, have collaborated a few times since, and maintain a continued relationship with Iceland, which Gavin admits, “kind of saved my sanity,” he laughs.

Tumi Magnússon and Gavin Morrison

Tumi’s career has transitioned from early post-conceptual paintings to video, sound, and digital images that preoccupy him now. The exhibition features mainly Tumi’s new works but is interspersed with a few key earlier pieces, the oldest dating back to the late 1990s.

The name of the exhibition gives viewers a hint of what to expect. The four words, herefrom, thereto, therefrom, hereto are distinct from one another but share the basic idea — moving from one place to another and back. This reflects the motif connecting the works in the exhibition, which, as Tumi sees it, is simple: everything is always changing.

“In my works, there’s this common thread that has something to do with movement and time and change,” he explains. 

This thread can be seen in both newer and older works and, more broadly, reflects Tumi’s view on life, echoing Heraclitus’ metaphor: “things being in [a state of] change all the time, in flux and movement, not being static.”

He explains, “There’s always incorporated that degree of change. Whatever you look at today, you know that in 20 years or 100 years, it’s going to be totally different. We are in this physical form today, but in 100 years, we will all be dead, and then our bodies… maybe will still exist in some form, but not there anymore as we are now.”

Tumi often uses repetition and sound to highlight the underlying sense that everything is short-lived and temporary, giving the exhibition a poetic continuity throughout.

“It was also quite important for me to have this mixture of old and new because I used to paint, and people tend to think that if you paint, and then you stop painting and start working in another medium, you’re changing — you are dropping something in favour of something else,” Tumi says. “It was important for me that even though it’s a change of medium, it’s the same thought that runs through everything.” 

Gavin agrees that including both recent works and key pieces from the past allows viewers to understand the full scope of Tumi’s practice and even offers insight into his thought process.

“One of the things that I was very excited to work on this exhibition, and I hope that people pick up on this, is that Tumi has had this very long and distinguished career. This exhibition is a real opportunity to see the consistency of idea, the core of a practice evolving and being articulated in a variety of ways over this period of time,” Gavin explains. “It feels kind of a really rich and generous way to view how an artist thinks. Walking through the exhibition, you really feel that you can engage with someone who’s looking at the world in a very particular way.”

Bending reality 

The work that greets you at the entrance is Peninsula Walk, a two-channel video installation, filmed by attaching a small camera to the artist’s ankle on two different seaside walks, and in fact, in two different countries — Iceland and Denmark. The two videos play side by side, showing the sea and horizon changing, each accompanied by the sound recorded on the respective walk. 

“You have this view of the sea on both sides, which means that you must be on a peninsula,” Tumi explains. “But it is in different places. You have the video synchronised, so it’s one walk — except the footsteps sound slightly different, because it’s not the same ground that you’re walking on — it’s mostly sand in one place and more rocky on the other one.” 

The work is rather involving, even activating your senses — after a few minutes of craning my head, trying to follow the camera through its repetitive movements and loud, distracting sound, I admit I felt a little dizzy. “It’s not really my intention when I start working on something, but this seems to occur sometimes that what I do has kind of a direct physical effect on people,” Tumi says. He has heard such feedback before, particularly with Swing, another work exploring the capture of movement, which shows multiplied steps of a sneaker and a pink Crocs shoe. “Each picture shows just one step — a swing of one foot from when it stopped until the next one,” Tumi explains. Originally recorded as a video, each frame is printed out as a photograph and mounted on a 10-millimetre transparent acrylic plate, giving it a sculptural physicality and thickness. The series is conceptually linked to Peninsula Walk and references the early motion experiments of pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge. 

In the next room, a series of videos takes over the entire space, each showing footage captured from public transport — “sometimes a bus, sometimes a tram, sometimes a train, in 10 different cities,” as Tumi explains. The work has been edited so that trips synchronise, stopping and starting at the same time and always moving in the same directions. The cities, though different, begin to look alike; the vehicles become difficult to distinguish, and, as Tumi emphasises, that barely matters — the only constant is their movement.

A dialogue across time and space

In a room hidden behind a thick black curtain (which I admit I almost missed) is one of Tumi’s earlier, and perhaps most well-known, works on display: Coffee and Piss. It’s a series of eight monochrome canvases that progress from black coffee to yellow urine, creating “an illusion of that bodily process,” as Gavin puts it. “Each of those canvases individually becomes a kind of slice of time,” he adds. Yet while this series captures distinct moments in time, the idea of everything in the world being in a constant state of transformation is evident even here. 

At the opposite ends of the same room is Monochromes — two screens, each showing a single colour. Suddenly, you hear a loud sound, and the colour on the screen changes with a splash. It’s a continuous loop, at first intriguing and even mysterious to the viewer, yet the underlying idea remains the same. “It’s the same movement through the room — in an old work and the newer work,” Tumi says.

According to Gavin, this idea was central to how the exhibition was conceived — building an awareness of how you experience the work, and how, as you move through the space, older and newer pieces begin to nod to each other.

When I ask what he hopes visitors take away, Tumi offers a humble reply. “Hopefully not the works, at least,” he smiles. “I just like it if it makes people feel… happy, creative, it sounds a bit cliché,” he laughs, searching for a word. “If it opens something up for people, if it inspires people. That’s what I like.”

You still have a few weeks to make your way to Keflavík to catch Herefrom Thereto Therefrom Hereto. In the meantime, Tumi and Gavin are already planning their next trip to Iceland. This summer, both are working on exhibitions at Skaftfell Art Center in Seyðisfjörður, with Tumi participating in a group show and Gavin curating Roman Signer’s exhibition. For anyone looking for museums off the beaten track, that one, too, is well worth the trip. 

Herefrom Thereto Therefrom Hereto is on view at Listasafn Reykjanesbæjar until April 19.

The post In A State Of Flux: Tumi Magnússon’s Exhibition Is A Meditation On Movement And Change appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

“I always say that just being on stage — after the first, let’s say, three minutes, that’s the worst — then it becomes one of the best feelings ever,” Nai Barghouti laughs, calling from Amsterdam. “I was born to do this. This is what I love doing the most, more than recording in the studio, more than anything else.”

Nai is a musician and composer, raised in Ramallah, who is currently touring her evocative, narrative music alongside her four-piece band. She performs both singing and playing the flute — the latter being her childhood passion — and explains that her drive to create and perform has been present for as long as she can remember. 

Music played a crucial role in Nai’s upbringing. “As a Palestinian child, just like any Palestinian child, you’re under so many boundaries that are forced on you, whether it’s actual physical checkpoints or just the mental boundaries that are enforced by the occupation on us,” she explains. “It was very important for me to find this thing that I can express myself with — and music was that.”

She began studying the flute at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music at age six; however, at times it was difficult to travel to the music school in Israel. Checkpoints and resistance lay along the way, but nothing deterred her. “Every child is also very stubborn — [your parents] tell you to take a jacket, so then, all of a sudden, you’re not cold. That’s just how it was, but on a much larger scale.” 

Nai continues, “It’s also showing you how strong it is to be a musician. For a soldier that is completely armed and very powerful in terms of their weapons, in terms of the support that they have, and then there’s a helpless child with her flute, and yet that somehow is very threatening to them. And that idea just always stays with you. You don’t really get it as a child, at that point, but it really just stays with you — to always want to keep pursuing your dream.” 

For Nai, her roots in Palestinian folk continue to inspire her. The music tradition “can be very rhythmic. It has a special factor of sounding joyful, yet the lyrics can be quite sad and very expressive towards poverty, or occupation, or racism.” She gives an example: “Yuma Mwel al Hawa,” a soft traditional lullaby whose title roughly translates to “Mum, Sing to the Wind.” The refrain of the song, though, repeats: “A dagger’s stab is better than being ruled by a scoundrel.” “It’s calm, yet the lyrics are very powerful,” she explains. “I always like to have it in every concert.”

Following the feeling

As a teenager, Nai moved abroad to continue her music education. While she studied, she began refining her tastes and her style. She moved first to the United States, and later to Amsterdam, explaining, “The general atmosphere of being in [the United States] was just not fitting with what I wanted to do, and also because the academic rules there were very strict in terms of what you can and cannot do. And for me, that never worked. I always had to just do what I felt, and not just what somebody said was right or not right 100 years ago or 400 years ago.”

By following what felt right, Nai explored new paths. “I always was curious to just do music that is not always labelled and not always put in, like, ‘This is jazz,’ or ‘This is classical music,’ or ‘This is pop,’” she emphasises. “It was just music that sounded good, and that was developing, and that was curious, and that’s all I cared about at that point.” 

Following these curiosities led her towards developing her own vocal technique — which eventually became the subject of her master’s thesis in the Netherlands — deemed “Naistrumenting.” She explains that Naistrumenting is to use the voice as an instrument, and forging this style was the key to figuring out “how to seamlessly blend Arabic music with jazz and other music genres.” 

“Using the voice as an instrument is not my own discovery, obviously,” she clarifies. “It’s been used a lot in different music genres like scat singing in jazz, Konnakol in Indian music and many, many others. But using the voice as an instrument in an Arabic-music setting that focuses on a multi-layered ornamentation technique — that was the thing that I was developing, which has not been done before.”

A journey of emotions

In recent years, Nai has won the Concertgebouw Young Talent Award, released her debut album Nai 1, garnered a quarter of a million followers on social media, and toured all over the world. She’s even lent her voice on a Skrillex track, “XENA,” where her Naistrumentation of a traditional Palestinian wedding song combines with Skrillex beats to make something electric and immersive. 

Now, in her current tour, she brings together four other musicians: Khalil Khoury, Tony Roe, Ruven Ruppik, and Mark Haanstra. One enthralling aspect of their performance is Khalil, who plays the qanun — a harp-like instrument played in the lap, similar to a zither. “The beautiful and most complex thing about this instrument is that every single accidental has to be physically manipulated with the fingers,” Nai notes. “Khalil has this ability to adjust so deeply, not just in volume, but filling the music, filling the sentence, filling the notes.”

All together, Nai’s performances are distinct and textured; her style has hooked her fans, who describe her music as “flawless,” “angelic,” and “magic.” Nai notes that many of her listeners have found her through social media, where she posts videos — simple, unvarnished — of her singing.

“Social media has always been a very weird thing for me to get used to,” she admits. “It all started with Facebook — at the time where Facebook was the main thing — before I could be a lot on stage or have a lot of professional videos taken of me on stage, a lot of it was undocumented. And so I just would sing at home and post a video, and a lot of people found out about what I do through that. There’s a lot of beauty in that; you can share things and reach people. Then there are a lot of barriers as well because it feels like sometimes that’s the only way to reach people.”

“These trending, very polished videos — it’s just very different than what I like music to be and the personal experience behind it,” she emphasises. 

In contrast, Nai hopes to create a rich, deeper experience for her audiences in her concerts. “It’s really more of a journey of emotions that the audience goes through,” she notes. “It can have joy, and then it can have grief, and then you can cry, and then you can laugh. And then it’s everything in between.”

She identifies that the unpolished side of live performance is what makes it beautiful. “It’s being in that very vulnerable state, where anything can go wrong and everything can go wrong. You’re affected by everything as well — if somebody coughs, if you all of a sudden have to sneeze — the voice is such a fragile instrument,” she says. “I just need to be present in that moment. And I think that’s the most beautiful point for me: to just let go.”

Nai Barghouti and her band will perform in Harpa’s Eldborg on April 17 at 20:00, and tickets can be found here. On April 18 at 13:00, there will be a free Q&A with Nai hosted by the Palestinian Project at the University of Iceland in Harpa’s Flói space, which you can learn more about here. Nai’s music can be found on most streaming services.

The post Nai Barghouti On Developing A Vocal Technique, Stubbornness, And The Vulnerability Of Performance appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Bónus

All Bónus stores are open as usual on April 2 and 3, except the Kjörgarður location, which will be closed on April 3. Everything’s normal on April 4. Almost all locations will be closed on Easter Sunday (April 5), with a few exceptions. See details here.

Krónan

Some Krónan locations will be closed on April 3 and most on Easter Sunday. See more info here.

Hagkaup

Hagkaup stores in Skeifan and Gardabaer will be open 24/7 throughout the Easter holidays. You can find detailed information about the opening hours of other locations is here.

Nettó

The only Nettó store open during Easter Sunday in Reykjavík is Nettó Grandi (10:00-17:00) and Nettó Mjódd (open until 17:00 instead of 24/7). See the opening hours for other days here.

Vínbúðin

Vínbúðin will be closed on April 2, 3, 5, and 6. On Saturday, April 4, most Vínbúðin stores will be open. Find more information about the opening hours here.

Lyfja

Pharmacies in Lágmúla and Smáratorg will be open every day during the Easter weekend from 8:00 to 00:00. See the opening hours for other locations here.

Swimming pools

Opening hours for swimming pools in the capital area and over the country will also change during the Easter weekend. Check out the spreadsheet of opening hours for the country’s swimming pools here.

Reykjavík City Library

Reykjavík City Libraries will be closed between April 2 and April 6. Reykjavik City Library in Úlfarsárdalur will be open without service during the opening hours of Dalslaug swimming pool. See the details here.

Strætó

Most buses in the capital area will operate using a Sunday schedule. Night buses will operate as usual. There are some changes in the countryside routes. See the details here.

For those planning to check out bars over Easter, we can confirm that Röntgen, Kaffibarinn, and Prikið will be open late! For more information on what to do during the Easter holidays, check out our event listings website events.grapevine.is.

The post Easter 2026 Opening Hours In Iceland appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

A new report finds that foreign tenants tend to rent smaller apartments than locals, yet do not necessarily pay less. In many cases, they pay more. The report also highlights that lower-income groups are now less likely to own housing than before.

According to the findings, tenants in Iceland are generally in a worse position than homeowners, with housing conditions that are in many ways also poorer than those of tenants in other Nordic countries.

At the same time, government housing support for tenants in Iceland is broadly comparable to that in similar countries.

Jónas Atli Gunnarsson, chief economist at HMS, in an interview with RÚV, points to disparities in rent between Icelandic and foreign tenants as one notable issue highlighted by the data.

“We clearly see that foreign tenants choose smaller apartments than native tenants. But what is interesting is that the rent is not necessarily lower for foreign tenants despite renting smaller apartments. In many cases, it is even higher,” says Jónas.

According to data on active rental agreements in the HMS rental register, foreign tenants paid on average 14 percent higher rent than local tenants in January 2026, even though they rented smaller apartments on average. Jónas says the data also suggests that housing support varies depending on tenants’ nationality.

“There are many indications that housing support reaches foreign tenants to a lesser extent, meaning they pay higher prices for their rental housing and receive less public support,” he says. “Whether in the form of housing benefits or access to municipal or general rental housing, there is clearly a significant difference in tenants’ circumstances depending on nationality.”

According to Jónas, the report shows that lower-income groups are now less likely to own housing than before. This may reflect the expansion of the rental market in recent years, driven by population inflows. Interest rate increases over the past four years have also had an impact.

“We consider this somewhat concerning, especially given that most tenants do not want to be in the rental market. They want to own their homes and are renting out of necessity,” Jónas says.

The report also discusses the mandatory registration of rental agreements, which came into effect at the start of the year. The requirement applies to all landlords and is intended to strengthen the rental market framework and improve access to information.

Despite the introduction of the requirement, Jónas says registrations have not increased significantly. He adds that HMS hopes to gain a better overview of the rental market through the measure, and that penalties will be applied if landlords fail to comply.

The post Foreign Tenants Pay More For Smaller Apartments appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The largest amount spent on foreign media advertisements occurs for web-based ads, social media, and search results. 

For the first time, Icelandic advertisers spent more money on foreign advertisement platforms than domestic ones in 2024. Information on the shares of individual companies in the digital ad market is unknown, but Hagstofan hypothesises that Alphabet — Google and Youtube’s parent company — and Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, are the largest benefactors. In 2024, the combined share of the two companies reached 97 percent of ad purchases made by credit card. 

The post Majority Of Ad Revenue Goes To Foreign Media  appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

A Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched at the request of police. Ásgeir Erlendsson, spokesperson for the Icelandic Coast Guard, said it was sent out with the highest priority and took off at around 17:30 on Sunday.

Chief Superintendent Pétur Björnsson described the accident as serious. Police received a report shortly before 17:00, and emergency responders were immediately sent to the scene.

The circumstances of the accident are under investigation. In a statement, police said no further information is available at this time.

The post Two Pedestrians Injured In Varmahlíð Traffic Accident appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

We’re pretty sure this one is exclusive to Iceland, and may have something to do with our inclination of killing foreign bishops when they were sent here in the 15th century. “Nobody becomes a Bishop without a beating,” doesn’t seem to ring true in other cultures, nor does it say good things about Icelandic hospitality. 

“Á misjöfnu þrífast börnin best” 

Recently I heard that, as a new parent, you shouldn’t take outdated parenting advice — even if it’s a proverb that has been passed down from generation to generation. “Children thrive on variety.” Yes, that’s technically true, but the translation doesn’t capture the essence. This one tells us that children need to learn to go with the ebb and flow of daily life: staying up late, handling rejection, taking responsibilities — but definitely not watching Youtube Kids.  

“Þegar ein báran rís, er önnur vís” 

Based on the conduct of some visitors laying eyes on Reynisfjara beach, this saying should be plastered on every rock, sign, and grain of sand in the area. “When one wave rises, another follows.”  

“Ekki verður bókvitið í askana látið” 

As a person with no useful physical skills whatsoever, this one hit hard. And should be kept in mind when selecting a university major. “Book smarts ain’t for eating,” would be a contemporary, slang-forward translation. True for most of Iceland’s history prior to the 20th century, but much less so now. 

“Ber er hver að baki nema sér bróður eigi” 

This proverb is found in Fóstbræðrasaga, one of the bellowed Icelandic sagas. It is about how essential friendship is. Back in the 90s when two Icelanders participated — together — in an international strong man competition, a Eurosport journalist asked one of them on the air what explained their success in the competition. “Everybody is naked unless they have their brother on their back” was the reply — a direct translation of this proverb — which left the journalist’s face shaped like, well, a face-sized questionmark. 

The post Last Words: Our Favourite Icelandic Easter Egg Proverbs appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Friday started strong with students from the Reykjavík College of Music, MÍT, filling up the second floor. I arrived late and had to peer through the door, crammed with six other people, all eager to witness the skilfully constructed indie pop/folk tunes the young musicians had to offer. Theódóra, the first of two acts, strummed the guitar while singing in a velvety voice. The second act, Ásgeir Helgi, played songs that had a Beatlesque quality and light-heartedness to them that reminded me a lot of modern bands making 60s style music, like the Lemon Twigs.

I find a comfortable seat on the first floor while Ásgeir Ásgeirsson plays the oud. In front of the stage are tables decorated with white flowers that match the blizzard outside. As the clock strikes eight, Harpa Þorvaldsdóttir, one of the festival’s organizers, steps onto the stage and gives a speech going over the history of the festival. She reads from her iPad but excuses this by telling us how forgetful she is and the audience chuckles. 

Ghosts among us

Svarar Knútur’s set can best be described as half-music, half-stand up, with him introducing each song in length and touching on subjects such as the overwhelming smell in Hagkaup’s perfume section and the possibility of an accountant-ghost residing in Iðnó. Since finishing his more than a decade-long project on grief, he is now shifting his focus to using old Icelandic folklore as inspiration. He blended the new story-rich songs with older classics from his catalogue, leaving the audience happy and relaxed. 

The festival continued with Umbra next on stage and following them, an ode to Icelandic folk music, played by a collection of various Icelandic folk musicians. 

Reaching the core

First on stage Saturday were the solo artists Soffía Björg and Fríða Dís who frequently play together. Being just the two of them playing guitar and bass their songs were stripped down from how they are usually play, bringing us “closer to their core” as Fríða tells the audience. The two of them were not only in tune with the music but also in tune with each other. Between filling the room with their dynamic singing they were finishing each other’s sentences and cracking jokes. Soffía played her Icelandic translation of Over the Rainbow, the eighth version known to exist, and when the song ended someone in the audience shouted: “Best version!”

Next on the programme, blue light bathed the stage as Árstíðir’s music washed over the audience like a magnificent sea. They switched between playing as a full band and singing vibrant acapella in parallel fifths, upholding an old folk tradition. They received an encore, but told the audience they are resting their famous version of the song “Heyr himna smiður,” and instead sang another song from the same album, Vetrarsól. Right after their performance, a recording of the longed-for song played on the speakers. 

Closing the festival, popular singer-songwriter Una Torfadóttir walked on stage with an acoustic guitar. Beside her, her boyfriend Hafsteinn played an electric guitar that added an ethereal vibe to the songs. Una partook in what seemed to be a ritual in the performances of the festival by introducing the stories behind each song she played. After being clapped back onto stage she played a short, unreleased song with a sweet chord progression. A song about thankfulness with funny rhymes, and it felt like she was thanking the audience. 

As the final night ended, and as people put on their coats, ready to take on the wind, gratitude stayed in the air. 

(In addition to our live review, The Reykjavík Grapevine did a Drop In video podcast with Reykjavík Folk Festival director Sigmar Þór Matthíasson here.)

The post Live Music Review: Reykjavík Folk Festival Provides Shelter From The Storm appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

“We managed to get some of them on flights yesterday, but most will be flying today or tomorrow,” Guðni Sigurðsson, spokesperson for Icelandair, told RÚV.

The orange weather alert was in effect during the first half of the day. By 13:00, however, the flight schedule was back on track. All flights were operating on schedule this morning.

“We’re quite proud to have managed to restore the schedule so quickly and to get all passengers onto other flights. We had to add one extra flight, but otherwise we were able to accommodate passengers on our regular scheduled services,” Guðni said.

Bad weather is expected again today, with transport disrupted across much of the country due to strong winds and snowfall. In southeast Iceland, severe conditions are forecast, including sandstorms and road closures.

However, the weather is not expected to have a major impact on flights, aside from domestic flights to Ísafjörður, which have been cancelled due to conditions. Weather and transport disruptions will continue to be monitored throughout the day.

Yesterday’s weather also affected domestic flights, with seven flights to Akureyri, Egilsstaðir, and Ísafjörður cancelled. Guðni said most of those passengers would reach their destinations today, except for Ísafjörður, where disruption continues due to today’s weather.

Despite the blizzard, Keflavík International Airport remained open. Guðjón Helgason, spokesperson for Isavia, said that severe weather generally affects airline schedules more than the airport itself. Runways had to be kept clear and braking conditions maintained.

“Airports like Keflavík Airport are always open. We need to be able to receive emergency flights that may suddenly need to land in bad weather,” he said, adding, “But of course, situations can arise where it becomes difficult to service aircraft due to the weather.”

The post Icelandair Rebooks 3,600 Passengers appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The weather has calmed down after yesterday’s blizzard conditions and orange weather alert — so we, in good conscience, can recommend some activities for you this weekend.

Today (March 27), five artists who participated in the international SÍM Residency in the past three months present In Resonance, a culmination of their work at the SÍM Residency Project Space (Seljavegur 32). This is their second and last day, so make sure to check it out from 14:00 to 18:00 before it’s gone!

Glerhúsið hosts an event in tandem with Ólöf Nordal’s exhibition Ó, welcoming eight poets to read amidst the art, starting at 17:00. Simultaneously, Gallery Kannski opens the exhibition Swing Test, a dual exhibition of Anna Schlechter and Nottabird (comprised of Boaz Yosef Friedman and Jessie Evans) exploring communication through video works, found object sculptures, and more. Later, at 20:30, Tónabíó celebrates their first week open with a concert with Cell7, CYBER, and KUSK & Óviti!

On Saturday, March 28, if you’re itching to get out of town, art and cultural project Bergmál og Sjávarljós celebrates their opening at 15:30 with a set from Sólrún Mjöll Kjartansdóttir and petals, followed by a performance Ráðhildur Ólafsdóttir. The project is based in the lighthouse in Akranes, and will run until April 19.

In the evening, Studio Silo and Smekkleysa present SÚRMJÓLK #1, celebrating all things loud. Akranes-based Snowed In, Strákurinn Fákurinn, punks Tjaldvagn, and Liverpool-based Dead Raze all will take the stage, and the hosts note: “Mild crowd anarchy permitted // Bring your earplugs // Bring your smile.”

This weekend also marks the final days of Stockfish, which we previewed in the issue of the Grapevine that you can find around town right now (or online right here). Closing out the festival is the Icelandic premiere of Hlynur Pálmason’s Joan of arc, plus a Q&A after the screening with the director himself.

Looking for something else? Just scroll down. Got an event? Add it to the calendar at events.grapevine.is, or go there to check out what’s already happening around town.

SAMPL 11: Andervel, Birnir, Salóme Katrín

March 27 — 20:00 — Iðnó — Free entry

Tonight, as always, SAMPL serves up a veritable bland í poka of the Icelandic music scene. This evening’s artists include the captivating Salóme Katrín, whose passionate performing and sweet voice leave all audiences feeling lighter; the tender Andervel, whose textured songs explore the frontperson José’s experiences while deftly weaving lyrics in Icelandic, Spanish, and English; and prolific rapper, Grapevine Music Awards’ Album Of The Year winner, Birnir. There’s always something for everyone at SAMPL. ISH

Gallery Port: 10th Birthday And Closing Party

March 28 — 16:00 — Gallery Port — Free entry

In 2023, we conducted an interview with Skarphéðinn Bergþórusson and Árni Már Þ. Viðarsson on Gallery Port’s 7th birthday; we heard about their proud moments, and how it felt like they were running their gallery on borrowed time. Now, on their 10th birthday, Gallery Port is closing. Since the beginning, they’ve been a space for fringey art to be taken seriously, for experimentation, for community. To mark their decade of art and celebrate all that Gallery Port has been, join them for their goodbye party. ISH

Sambland Combi-Nation — Group exhibition

Opens March 28 — 16:00 — Ásmundarsalur — Free entry

Artists Adam Flint Taylor, Clare Aimée, Julie Sjöfn Gasiglia, Natka Klimowicz, Patty Spyrakos, Pola Sutryk, and Vikram Pradhan present their group exhibition on the “mundane moments that combine to bend the arc of one’s life in a direction fundamentally different from where it began.” Iceland has become home to all the artists in the exhibition, for one reason or another, and each of them reflects in Sambland Combi-Nation on how life has led them here. ISH

Reykjavík Early Music Festival 

March 31 to April 2 — Harpa — Tickets and festival passes for sale on tix.is  

In its third iteration, the Reykjavík Early Music Festival continues to celebrate baroque music with Icelandic-based artists and international ones alike. This year’s programme ranges from a concert from the Low Key Ensemble entitled “Bassa, meiri bassa!” (Bass, more bass!) to multiple family concerts. The artists travelling to Iceland for the festival include multiple lutenists and an ensemble which combines music, dance, and theatre in their performances, all sure to be more exciting than you’d think early music to be. ISH 

The post Grapevine Events: SAMPL, Gallery Port Closing Party, Early Music Festival appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

An unofficial declaration of will was signed by the parties on October 22, but the Comittee did not take an official stance towards the concert until a detailed report and scheduled were produced. 

This is Kaleo’s second foray of hosting open-air, stadium-like concerts. In 2025, the band performed at Vaglaskógur in North Iceland, with about 10.000 attendees. 

Kaleo debuted in 2012 with their cover of the Icelandic pop song “Vor í Vaglaskógi”. In 2013, they released their eponymous debut album and pursued the American music market to considerable success. 

The post Kaleo To Play Þingvellir National Park June 20 appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

I went downtown anyway.

This is partly stubbornness, partly a suspicion that the warning was doing some overclaiming. Orange is supposed to signal genuine danger. Today it delivered strong wind, snow, and cold. Unpleasant, sure, but this is March in Iceland, where unpleasant is the baseline. The problem with calibrating warnings too high is the same one facing anyone who cries wolf: eventually people stop listening, and, the one time it really matters, half the city may already be on Tryggvagata getting a hot dog.

Which is where I was. The Grapevine office overlooks the Bæjarins Beztu hot dog stand. And, naturally, it was open.

This is when it struck me that Iceland already has its own version of the Waffle House Index. Waffle House is a cheap, fluorescent-lit diner chain from the American South that has turned refusing to close into something close to institutional identity. It runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and closes for essentially nothing. Craig Fugate, who ran America’s federal disaster agency FEMA, noticed this after Hurricane Charley in 2004 and turned it into an informal disaster metric. Open with a full menu: green, things are manageable. Open with limited service: yellow, the generator’s running and supplies are low. Closed: red. “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?” Fugate said. “That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”

Bæjarins Beztu is Iceland’s Waffle House, except instead of 80 years of surviving hurricanes, it has 88 years of surviving everything Iceland can throw at it. Founded in 1937 by a sailor named Jón Sveinsson who switched professions after illness forced him off the sea, the stand has outlasted the Second World War, the Cold War, the 2008 crash, and enough Icelandic storms to fill a meteorological archive. It has been at the corner of Tryggvagata since the 1960s. The hot dogs are lamb, pork and beef, ordered eina með öllu if you want the remoulade, sweet mustard, ketchup, and both kinds of onion. The Guardian named it the best hot dog stand in Europe in 2006. On a busy day it moves a thousand pylsur.

So here is my proposal for a Pylsur Index. If the stand is open, whatever warning is on the board is survivable: green. If the stand is open but business is unusually thin, people have thought twice about leaving the house: yellow. And if Bæjarins Beztu is closed, stop arguing with the meteorologists and stay home: red.

Today was yellow.

The post The Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur Index: School Closures Suggest A Local Alternative To The Waffle House Index appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Landspítali, Iceland’s largest employer, with over 6,000 staff, traditionally gave chocolate Easter eggs to employees in the lead-up to the holiday, usually size 4.

According to information from Landspítali, this was one of the measures taken to meet the government’s 3-4 billion ISK budget cut requirement for the hospital. The decision sparked lively discussion among staff, coming just weeks after another controversial measure when Icelandic butter Smjörvi was substituted with Italian Bertolli.

Ragnar Freyr Ingvarsson, who works both as an independent physician and at Landspítali, questioned the hospital’s priorities after the decision not to give staff Easter eggs. At the same time, employees at the Ministry of Health received Easter eggs, and a minister had gifted “luxury eggs” to fellow ministers.

In a Facebook post, Ragnar Freyr referred to the hospital magazine Spítalapúls (which is in fact only published digitally), sarcastically wondering whether the “Great Easter Egg Shortage” would be covered in the next edition. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to cut a few pages there and splash out on a few Easter eggs?” he asked, adding: “What a set of priorities!”

Another physician, Kristín Huld Haraldsdóttir, added, “A lot of people at Landspítali work in low-paid jobs — young people with children, groups for whom receiving an egg makes a difference. For many, it would be a welcome boost. Freyja eggs are even cheaper than many others. Yet at the Ministry of Health, there was an Easter egg hunt for staff today — not Freyja eggs, but Nói Síríus. The chocolate is unevenly distributed across public institutions! Unbelievable, to say the least.”

Góa and Omnom come to the rescue

After the news appeared in the media, Ragnar Freyr received a call from representatives of the chocolate companies Góa and Omnom. “They just called to say that Góa will make 5,000 chocolate eggs and Omnom another 1,000. They plan to produce them specifically for the hospital staff because the stock is empty and production has been halted this year,” Ragnar said.

The post Budget Cuts Leave Landspítali Staff Without Easter Eggs appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Many roads in the southwest are closed as the worst of the storm passes, and all international and domestic flights in the region this morning have been cancelled or postponed until after midday.

School operations in the capital area are disrupted, with some rural schools cancelling classes altogether.

Ásgeir Þór Ásgeirsson, Assistant Chief of Police in the capital region, said on RÚV last night: “The transport system could be paralysed, so it’s important to closely monitor information from Strætó,” adding, “I think people — those who can, and even those who can’t — should just stay at home and wait for the weather to pass. By midday, the weather should be much more manageable.”

You can check the status of your flight here for international flights and here for domestic. Travellers are advised to check road.is and vedur.is for updates before setting out on March 26, and to avoid travel unless absolutely necessary.

The post Authorities Urge People To Stay Home Due To The Weather appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Birnir was the most popular given names for boys. Thirthy-three children were named Birnir.

Registers Iceland compiles the data from 4.439 records. 

Compared between years, the boy name Birnir takes first place ousting Emil and Jökull. High-flyer Stefán moved from 47th place last year to 9-11th place this year. 

For girls, Matthildur moved Aþena from the first place, while Hildur gained a surge in popularity, moving from 39th place to 8-11th. 

The post Birnir And Matthildur Most Popular Newborn Names appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office has posted an Orange Alert due to blizzard conditions expected in the capital region through March 26, 2026. The expected time of impact is 7:00 to 13:00 on March 26, 2026, with wind gusts up to 35 metres per second. Considerable snow with low visibility is expected, and the wind may cause damage to structures.

An orange alert is the second highest possible level of alert due to weather, and it indicates a significant disruption with danger to life and property damage.

Travel should be avoided on March 26, 2026. Follow  road.is and vedur.is for updates.

The post Update: Flights Cancelled Or Delayed Due To Blizzard Conditions Forecast For Reykjavík Area With Orange Weather Alert Posted appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

According to the findings, music plays a big role in the daily lives of Icelanders. 

Almost all people (94 percent) listen to music in general, spending on average a total of 78 minutes per day on the activity. Music was in second place following TV and streaming service consumption, but respondents claimed to spend more time listening to music than on social media (66 minutes). Approximately three out of four households pay for a music streaming platform. 

Musical activity was also found to be widespread, with 48 percent of respondents claiming they sing or play an instrument for leisure. This makes music the nation’s most popular cultural hobby. Fifty-nine percent of Icelanders attended a concert over the course of 12 months — the highest proportion of art and cultural event participation, with historical site (58 percent) and museum visits (57 percent) ranking below it. 

The data is part of Statistics Iceland’s experimental statistics, and the exact results are not fully verified by the institution.

Writer’s note: The article erroneously stated that 94 percent of Icelanders listen to music daily. Instead, the proportion relates to music listening in general.

The post Almost Half Of Icelanders Play Music For Leisure  appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Þóra Jóhanna Jónasdóttir, the Chief Veterinary Officer of the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), told RÚV that the government should reconsider the laws permitting fur farming in Iceland, as has been done in many parts of Europe. She added that the animals cannot express their natural behaviour while confined to small cages.

Images taken by Kristo in October and November of last year document conditions at three of the six mink farms that were operating in Iceland at the time. All of these farms have since ceased operations for financial reasons, and, according to RÚV, only one fur farm remains in operation in the country.

“I found it very distressing to see these images, especially considering that these farms — which have now ceased operations—were inspected not long before, and follow-ups were carried out. At some of the farms, violations of animal welfare regulations were found, though not at all of them. It is sad that those remarks did not lead to more lasting improvements than what we see in these images,” says Þóra.

Fur farming has largely ceased in Iceland, and most countries within the EU have banned it, with those bans either already in effect or set to take effect in the coming years. Þóra believes Icelandic authorities should consider following the same path.

“I think the authorities need to examine the basis on which decisions about this kind of activity are made. There has been a wave across Europe to reassess this, and I believe Icelandic authorities need to do the same,” she says.

The Icelandic Veterinary Association has expressed support for the Chief Veterinary Officer’s comments and is urging the government to take a firm stance against fur farming as the industry’s regulations are reviewed.

The post Calls Grow To Ban Fur Farming in Iceland appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

According to member of Alþingi’s Industrial Affairs Committee and Social Democrat MP Kristján Þórður Snæbjarnarson, the law is supposed to ensure that people can lease their legal residence for short-term purposes. 

The new legislation primarily cracks down on companies supplying short-term accommodation via apartment hotels. In 2024, the government stopped administering business licenses for accommodation companies, while retroactive permissions were still valid and indefinite.

With the change, business licenses are valid for five years and available for renewal, given that company accommodation is zoned as commercial, as opposed to residential.

Individuals’ personal rentals will still be limited to 90 days per year and two million ISK in rental income, with the option of subletting a personal residence within an urban area as well as one rural property, such as a summer cottage. 

The post “AirBnB” Law Confirmed In Alþingi  appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

My favourite song was the enchanting 11:11. The lyrics felt intentional along with the use of sensory words and vivid descriptions that added to the visual escape of the music. The song brought a sense of nostalgia and layered the evening with an ethereal quality that the audience longed for during SXSW. A lovely display of some of the amazing talent coming from Iceland.

Rakel performed at In Cahoots Studio, Austin, Texas, March 16, 2026.

The post Live Concert Review: Rakel At South By Southwest 2026 appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Welcome to The Haul, where we give you a peek into our shopping bag (or the shopping bag of someone far more interesting than us) and an idea of what’s worth browsing and buying in Reykjavík these days. This issue, we reached out to classical music aficionado, pianist, composer, and State of the Art music festival co-founder Magnús Jóhann, who, as it turns out, has suspiciously good taste in things beyond music. You can catch Magnús performing with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra on May 22. 

​​1. Sandárbókin by Gyrðir Elíasson — I was missing a few books by Gyrðir and bought a few of them at the book fair in Garðheimar recently. But I’m still missing Sandárbókin! — 4.490 ISK, available at Forlagið, Fiskislóð 39 or via forlagid.is

​​2. France Chair by Finn Juhl — I have a strange obsession with chairs, and right now this chair tops my list of chairs I obsess over. It’s incredibly comfortable! EPAL were gracious enough to lend it to me and GDRN for our Christmas album cover. — 587.500 ISK, available at Epal, multiple locations or via epal.is

3. LUX by Rosalía — Rosalía’s new album has been sold out every time I’ve visited Reykjavík Record Shop for the past few months. One day I’ll make it mine! — price unavailable, hopefully available soon at Reykjavík Record Shop, Klapparstígur 35 or via rrs.is

4. In Icelandic Colours by Birgir Andrésson — I’m a big fan of his and this recent book about him has been on my wish list for a while — 17.500 ISK, available at the Reykjavík Art Museum shop, Tryggvagata 17 or via listasafnreykjavikur.is

5. Annual pass, Skvassfélag Reykjavíkur — The Reykjavík Squash Society not only has excellent squash courts but also a great gym, sauna and cold plunge! I love the sport and have been playing every week for a few years. And I must say that in my opinion squash far exceeds padel in my books — 125.000 ISK, available via skvass.is

6. Glazed mirror by Salóme Hollanders — Love these mirrors by Salóme! — starting from 49.000 ISK, available at Epal, multiple locations or via epal.is

7. Incense sticks from Fischersund — Such a nice mood for a cosy evening at home — 4.500 ISK, available at Fischersund, Fischersund 3 or via fischersund.com

8. Hexensalbe, Stora Skuggan perfume — One of my favourites! Stora Skuggan is a very cool brand as well and worth checking out in Stefánsbúð! — 28.900 ISK, available at Stefánsbúð, Laugavegur 7 or via stefansbud.com

For all your non-essentials, visit the Grapevine store here.

The post The Haul: Magnús Jóhann Knows What’s Good appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Three people were taken to the emergency department following an explosion at the premises of the Kornax commercial building in Reykjavík this morning, reports RÚV.

One person is seriously injured, another has sustained significant injuries, and a third suffered minor injuries.

The explosion, which occurred shortly after 07:00, was powerful enough to tear part of one side of the building.

“It was reported as an explosion — a large explosion — in the building, with part of the structure missing, and that several people inside had been injured,” Unnar Már Ástþórsson, chief inspector at the capital area police, told RÚV.

“Three people were transported to hospital: one seriously injured, one significantly injured, and the third with less severe injuries,” he added.

The cause of the explosion is not yet known.

A large hole is visible in the side of the building (see here), which, according to Unnar Már, was a direct result of the blast.

Although an initial report indicated a fire alongside the explosion, no fire was present when emergency services arrived, which made rescue efforts easier.

“Conditions were relatively favourable for rescue operations as there was no fire in the space. Some of the injured had already been removed. We then worked our way through the building to secure the area and reach those who remained,” Unnar Már said.

Nearly all available police officers, around 15 to 20 personnel, were dispatched to the scene, along with the full fire brigade. Staff and volunteers from the Red Cross provided psychological support and assistance, while nearby businesses offered facilities to help care for those affected.

At around 09:00, employees were allowed back into the building to shut down operations if necessary.

The post UPDATED: One Dead, Two Injured In Commercial Building Explosion In Reykjavík appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Yellow weather warnings for strong southwesterly winds and heavy snow showers have been issued across most of the country and remain in effect until tonight, except in the southeast, where they are in place until tomorrow, reports RÚV.

Travel disruption is widespread. Some roads are already impassable or closed, while all flights from Reykjavík Domestic Airport have been cancelled until the afternoon. Most international arrivals scheduled for today have also been cancelled, with the earliest planned departure currently an Icelandair flight to Copenhagen at 15:40.

Despite the severe weather, emergency services have seen limited call-outs so far. One rescue team responded in Njarðvík after a garden shed was badly damaged, while another was called to Selfoss when roof panels came loose.

Meanwhile, an uncertainty alert remains in place due to the risk of slush avalanches in the southern Westfjords. Avalanche risk alerts in other parts of the Westfjords and North Iceland have been lifted.

Travellers are advised to check road.is and vedur.is for updates before travelling today.

The post UPDATED: Yellow Weather Warning With Cancelled Flights And Road Closures appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

In last week’s Friday Event Picks, we spoke too soon. We’re sorry. It’s decidedly not so spring-y here; the only yellow isn’t coming from the sun, but from today’s yellow weather warning.

However, regardless of the actual weather, today (March 20) is the spring equinox! At 19:30, Aoife O’Brien marks the day by celebrating the release of Never Been One to let a Bygone Go at Smekkleysa, which will come out at the exact moment of the equinox, 14:46. At 20:00, multidisciplinary artists Ben Frost and Francesco Fabris open their exhibition Harmonic Tremor at Nýlistasafnið, which is the culmination of field research and recording alongside their shared fascination with Icelandic geology. They’ll offer a live performance at 20:30, which will be the only time they will perform alongside the exhibition.

On Saturday, Verkvinnslan’s annual Winter Festival KULDAKAST brings a full day of exhibitions, performances, food, drink, and music to Gufunes. March 21 is World Day for Glaciers, and to recognise the day, the Reykjavík Photography Museum is holding a symposium (in Icelandic) beginning at 14:00, alongside Kristján Maack’s current exhibition there, Sleeping Giants, which showcases Icelandic glaciers.

At 16:00, KHAIRKHAN performs The Echo of the Steppes at Hannesarholt, a concert series aimed to “show people the different colours of Mongolian culture, to correct the stereotypes of Mongolian people in the West for a long time.”

In the evening, another concert at Smekkleysa calls: Bucking Fastards, gubba horn, and Dauðyflin bring rock to the record shop, beginning at 19:00. At Kabarett, Girl Jokes brings an all-female lineup and a concert afterwards to boot. Starting at 21:00, Kat Baily, Gabriela Rubio, and Joy Kumral take the stage for a night of “bold jokes, big laughs, and a room full of energy.”

On Sunday, the Reykjavík Maritime Museum hosts a free guided tour in Polish, beginning at 14:00.

Looking for something else? Just scroll down. Got an event? Add it to the calendar at events.grapevine.is, or go there to check out what’s already happening around town.

Reykjavík Folk Fest

March 19 to 21 — Various locations — Some events free, others on tix.is

After a successful showing last year, the Reykjavík Folk Festival is back! The festival boasts a lineup of Icelandic folk icons and stars, from Svavar Knútur to Una Torfa, Umbra Ensemble to Árstíðir, and more. Alongside the paid events, free events of MÍT students showcasing work and a family concert at Iðnó let everyone get in on the excitement. You can find more information on their social media — go have some folking fun! ISH

RVK Tónabíó Opening Weekend

March 19 to 21 — Tónabíó, Skipholt 33 — 2.500 ISK, tickets can be purchased on tix.is

RVK Tónabíó found its way into our hearts with well-made beer and well-curated concert series. Now, their concerts are moving out of the taproom and into the original Tónabíó, built in 1962. For their second night of celebrations (March 20), they welcome Amor Vincit Omnia (who are newly back after performing at SXSW), techno-violin performance duo Geigen, Grapevine’s Song Of The Year winners digital ísland, and Grapevine’s Best Live Act Knackered. Let’s celebrate a new venue opening, instead of yet another one closing! ISH

Stockfish Film & Industry Festival

March 19 to 29 — Various locations — Some events free, tickets can be purchased here

In our latest issue of the Grapevine, our journalist Iryna Zubenko spoke with Stockfish Managing Director Dögg Mósesdóttir to get a preview of the festival. Now it’s upon us! You can expect their extensive short film programme (look out for events billed as Sprettfiskur/Shortfish), a seven-and-a-half-hour-long screening of Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó, and the Icelandic debut of Hlynur Pálmason’s Joan of arc. For a full run-down of what’s free, what’s ticketed, and what’s happening, check out their website. ISH

Jötungíma kveður

March 25 & 28 — 20:00 — Turninn, Elliðaárstöð — Tickets for 3.920 ISK

If you’re seeking something niche, how about a play about a giant mushroom (who is there to sort and recycle mankind, but can’t be bothered to) living in the tower of Elliðaárstöð, the old power station in Elliðaárdalur? Jötungíma kveður is a new performance from Díó, the project of performing artists Aðalbjörg Árnadóttir and Ylfa Ösp Áskelsdóttir, which was formed 20 years ago. They have two performances left, on March 25 and March 28, and tickets can be bought here (note that the performance is in Icelandic). ISH

The post Grapevine Events: Folk Festival, Tónabíó Opening, Stockfish Film & Industry Festival appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The report is published for the 14th time.

For the ninth year, Finns are recorded as being the happiest of all nations. 

Danes measure at third place, with Costa Rica following in fourth. Never before has a Latin American nation reached this high in the Happiness ranking.

Swedes and Norwegians claim fifth and sixth place respectively.

In a CNN interview, former economics professor John F. Helliwell, one of the report’s founders, noted the Nordic’s high happiness rankings can be attributed to strong health and education infrastructure, which provide safety and structure.

Happiness among young people has decreased considerably in recent years, John claimed. The biggest culprit is the scope and nature of social media.

This is the second year in a row where no Anglophone country ranks among the top ten on the happiness index.

The post Icelanders Second Happiest Nation appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

According to the Met Office, more than 122 avalanches have been reported in the Westfjords and the Tröllaskagi Peninsula since last Thursday.

There has been a state of uncertainty due to avalanche risk in the Tröllaskagi and Westfjords regions for almost a week. On Thursday, heavy snowfall accompanied by northeasterly winds triggered avalanches. Strong winds on Sunday then caused snow to accumulate in slopes and depressions, resulting in many more avalanches.

Harpa Grímsdóttir, head of the Avalanche Division at the Met Office, told RÚV the avalanches have been concentrated in northern Westfjords, along the coast, and in the outer Tröllaskagi north of Dalvík. Other areas of the country have largely escaped.

“These are avalanches that we have been able to observe and register. We expect that many more avalanches have occurred in areas where no one has seen them, so they are not recorded. Some may have fallen in poor visibility or bad weather before anyone could see them. These are likely smaller avalanches,” Harpa said last night on the radio.

The Met Office has received further reports of avalanches since speaking with Harpa. Tómas Jóhannesson, an avalanche specialist at the Met Office, said that some of these avalanches occurred earlier in the storm cycle but were only officially recorded last night.

“Reports are still coming in of avalanches that happened earlier in the storm, which people are only now becoming aware of,” Tómas told RÚV.

For example, an avalanche fell over a geothermal borehole site in Skútudal, east of Siglufjörður. Several pump sheds for the utility are located there, but Tómas pointed out that they are specially reinforced to withstand avalanches — and they have done so many times.

Check road.is and vedur.is for updates before travelling this week.

The post Over 120 Avalanches Recorded Since Thursday appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Since the end of World War II, Iceland has provided air navigation services over the North Atlantic alongside six other states. The Icelandic flight information region, named BIRD, comprises Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Nuuk flight information area (BGGL FIR), which covers approximately 70 percent of Greenland’s landmass. 

In an interview with The Globe And Mail, Vittus claimed the arrangement is limiting to Greenlanders. Controlling their own flight region would be a step towards financial independence, he argued, estimating the revenue of the operations would bring 30-40 million USD into Greenland. 

In conversation with RÚV, former director of aviation Þorgeir Pálsson opposes Vittus’ claims. 

“In reality, the revenue that comes in covers the costs,” he said. The majority of state revenue incurred by aviation control is the taxable income of staff, Þorgeir continued.

According to information from Isavia and the ministry of infrastructure, a large part of current air traffic passes the Icelandic part of the region. If Greenland would assume control over the Nuuk flight information area, air traffic directed from Iceland would be reduced by 30 percent, RÚV reports. 

The post Greenlandic Politician Criticises Iceland’s Air Traffic Dominance appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

A fire broke out yesterday, March 16, in an unattended bus that was being transported on Breiðhella in Hafnarfjörður, reports RÚV.

Firefighters were called to the scene after a fire started in a bus in the Helluhverfi neighbourhood of Hafnarfjörður. According to the Capital Area Fire Department, the bus was empty and was being transported between locations at the time.

The driver managed to detach the trailer, thereby saving the truck. However, the bus and the trailer were completely destroyed.

Firefighters extinguished the fire yesterday, and efforts are now underway to remove the wreckage from the scene.

Following the fire, a cloud of thick black smoke was visible as far away as Keflavík International Airport.

The post Bus Burns To The Ground In Hafnarfjörður appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

The people were transported to Reykjaskóli north of the pass where they received overnight accommodation, while their cars were left behind, RÚV reports. 

Holtavörðuheiði was closed last night due to weather conditions and will be closed until at least 11:00, when conditions will be reassessed.

Travellers and tourists are encouraged to check the ICRA’s route map or Safetravel.is and monitor the Icelandic Met Office’s forecasts. 

Note: The Reykjavík Grapevine is broke. We need money. Recently we had to inform all of our journalists that we won’t be able to afford their work unless our fortunes change. It has been our purpose to bring journalism and cultural coverage of Iceland to the rest of the world for almost 24 years, and while business has always been difficult, it has become ever more so in the past few years, making it harder to fulfil our purpose. Any amount will help. More will help more. Donate here.

You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.

Also you can get regular news from Iceland — including the latest notifications on eruptions, as soon as they happen — by signing up to our newsletter.

The post Travellers Rescued From Holtavörðuheiði  appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

There are a slew of exhibition openings over the next few days: Sturla Sigurðarson’s series of paintings on body and consciousness — I’ve Been Here Before Though I Don’t Remember It — at Herma (March 13 at 16:00), Snædís Björt Guðmundsdóttir’s oil portraiture of Icelandic horses — Nærvera — at Núllið Gallery (March 13 at 17:00), Claire Paugam’s tesselated and multimedia exploration of memory — Memory Crash — at Gallery Port (March 14 at 15:00), Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir’s renderings of Icelandic nature — Verse — at Þula Hafnartorg (March 14 at 16:00), Daníel Björnsson’s exploration of time — FUNNEL — at Listamenn Gallery (March 14 at 16:00) and Agnes Ársælsdóttir, Eleni Ieremia, Hrafnkell Tumi Georgsson, and Sölvi Halldórsson’s performance + exhibition on industry’s collision with natural materials — Resource Gardens — at Slökkviðstöðin (also March 14 at 16:00) …and maybe there’s even more!

Tonight, March 13, at 21:00, Bíó Paradís’ Party Screening is the Icelandic cult-classic Stella í Orlofi. Curious what it’s about? Journalist Iryna Zubenko revisited the film in an article we published this summer. Simultaneously, Babies take over Stúdentakjallarinn (the band, not a random assortment of kids).

On Saturday, March 14, at 17:00, there will be a time capsule opening and an open mic at the City Library (Grófin) to mark the final weekend of the Future Festival. In the evening, soul-inspired musicians BEAR THE ANT & Ívar Klausen hold a show at 12 Tónar, starting at 19:00. At the same time, Improv for Dance Enthusiasts hosts an “OPEN STAGE” improv session at RVK Tónabíó. Later, this week’s Straumur concert at Kaffibarinn is Andartak, which begins at 21:30.

D54: Hugo Llanes — Bonita

Newly opened — Hafnarhús (Reykjavík Art Museum) — Museum fees apply

As the 53rd creative in the D Gallery space, artist and cultural facilitator Hugo Llanes brings an exploration of an alter ego — Bonita — who is able to exist in between multiple cultures. Here, Hugo addresses migration and assimilation, identifying shared cultures between Iceland and Mexico, the nuances of translation, all while using steel pipes as literal scaffolding for the works, evoking punk aesthetics and the construction of housing. ISH

KUSK & Óviti Röntgen TakeOVER

Friday, March 13 — 20:00 — Röntgen — Free entry

Dynamic duo KUSK & Óviti bring their party pop to Röntgen as they TakeOVER the bar for what’s sure to be an exciting Friday evening. They’ll begin on the upper floor for a concert, moving downstairs for a DJ set later in the night. With an Icelandic Music Award nomination for Pop Music Album of the Year in their pockets for their RÍFAST, get a taste of pop’s finest before Wednesday night’s awards ceremony. ISH

World Narcosis Final Shows

March 14 & 15 — R6013 & hafnar.haus — Pay what you can, 2.000 ISK suggested

World Narcosis has been active since 2010, with the four-piece performing their extreme, metallic grind all over the country. Now, they’re retiring — but not without a final two-night hurrah. On March 14, they’re playing works 2017-2026 (most focused on Lyruljóru & Lyðjulómu) in R6013; on March 15, they’re playing 2010-2017 in hafnar.haus’ Wasabi Room. On March 14, they’ll be joined by Kælan Mikla, Börn, and Óreiða; on March 15, they’ll be joined by Misþyrming, Grafnár, and glupsk. Whether you’re a huge fan or have never heard of them, be sure not to miss your last chance to see them live. ISH

Reykjavík Poetics: Orðið Er Frjálst

March 17 — Doors 19:30, open mic at 20:00 — Mengi — Free entry

Reykjavík Poetics holds their first open mic of this year, offering a stage to writing in any language, any style. They’ve been doing these for a while — since June 2023, to be exact. A while back, journalist Ish Sveinsson Houle spoke to the board of Reykjavík Poetics for a view into their projects. Check it out, and then check out their open mic. ISH

Note: The Reykjavík Grapevine is broke. We need money. Recently we had to inform all of our journalists that we won’t be able to afford their work unless our fortunes change. It has been our purpose to bring journalism and cultural coverage of Iceland to the rest of the world for almost 24 years, and while business has always been difficult, it has become ever more so in the past few years, making it harder to fulfill our purpose. Any amount will help. More will help more. Donate here.

You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.

Also you can get regular news from Iceland — including the latest notifications on eruptions, as soon as they happen — by signing up to our newsletter.

The post Grapevine Events: So Many Exhibition Openings, KUSK & Óviti, World Narcosis Final Shows appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

Finnbogi Pétursson was named Artist of the Year for his exhibition Quake at the LÁ Art Museum in Hveragerði. The award was presented by Logi Einarsson, Minister of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education. The prize includes 1.5 million ISK.

Other nominees in the category were Claudia Hausfeld, Kristín Gunnlaugsdóttir and Sigurður Ámundason.

Finnbogi’s win was explained by the Icelandic Art Center: “He has distinguished himself through technically sophisticated installations that enthral the senses with their magnificent simplicity. In recent years, Finnbogi has opened himself emotionally in his work, as he has done in Quake,” press release continues, “It is the jury’s belief that Quake captures the recurring themes found in Finnbogi’s practice as a whole, one that has inspired other artists and captivated scholars and audiences alike.”

In addition to the main award, Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir received the Motivational Award for her performance Tacet: Extrinsic at the biennial festival Sequences XII. Other nominees in this category included Hrafnkell Tumi Georgsson and Julie Sjöfn Gasiglia.

Veteran artist Rúrí received the Honorary Award for her long-standing contribution to Icelandic visual art. “Rúrí has stood guard for over half a century, never letting viewers fall asleep on her watch. In surveying Rúrí’s vast career and scrutinising both major and minor themes in her practice, what becomes clear is a remarkable sense of continuity: her older works continue to come alive — and to lead independent lives — regardless of the passage of time,” reads the press release of the Icelandic Art Center. Last year, the Grapevine interviewed Rúrí about her exhibition Tíma Mát at the town’s newly opened feminist gallery SIND. Read the interview here.

The exhibition Steina: Playback, that was on display simultaneously at the National Gallery of Iceland and the Reykjavík Art Museum, was named Retrospective of the Year. The exhibition was curated by Natalie Bell of the MIT List Visual Arts Center in collaboration with Helga Christoffersen (Buffalo AKG Art Museum), Markús Þór Andrésson (Reykjavík Art Museum) and Pari Stave (National Gallery of Iceland). The Reykjavík Grapevine has covered the exhibition in detail and interviewed Steina.

Group Exhibition of the Year went to Hamraborg Festival, curated by Agnes Ársælsdóttir, Jo Pawlowska and Pétur Eggertsson.

The award for Publication on Contemporary Art went to Mynd & hand: Skólasaga 1939-1999 (The Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, 1939-1999) by Arndís S. Árnadóttir and Davíð Ólafsson.

The Icelandic Art Prize is organised by the Icelandic Visual Arts Council.

See photos from the event below:

Note: The Reykjavík Grapevine is broke. We need money. Recently we had to inform all of our journalists that we won’t be able to afford their work unless our fortunes change. It has been our purpose to bring journalism and cultural coverage of Iceland to the rest of the world for almost 24 years, and while business has always been difficult, it has become ever more so in the past few years, making it harder to fulfil our purpose. Any amount will help. More will help more. Donate here.

You can also check out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.

Also you can get regular news from Iceland — including the latest notifications on eruptions, as soon as they happen — by signing up to our newsletter.

The post Icelandic Art Prize 2026 Winners Announced appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.

In late 2023, South Africa brought a case before the ICJ  regarding Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip, which resulted in a humanitarian crisis and mass killings of Palestinians. South Africa has claimed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and breached the 1948 Genocide Convention. 

With the case, South Africa insists that Israel is breaching its commitment to the Genocide Convention based on its conduct during the armed conflict, which restarted in October, 2023.  

In accordance with Iceland’s policy

Icelandic authorities have emphasised the responsibilities of international courts to decide whether a genocide is being committed. In accordance to ICJ’s rules, Iceland’s participation is limited to reviewing how governments should interpret the Genocide Convention. 

“The international society is responsible for bringing forward cases regarding breaches of international law to independent courts,” Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir is quoted in the press release. “With Iceland’s participation in South Africa’s case before the ICJ, we are using our voice to the benefit of international law and human rights. And we can be proud of that,” she continued. 

The decision fulfils a policy motion submitted and confirmed in Alþingi in November 2023 regarding Iceland’s stance towards the conflict in the Levant region. 

In addition to Iceland, a total of 35 states and international organisations have supported South Africa’s case. Iceland becomes the fifth European country to do so, joining Belgium, Ireland, Slovenia, and Spain. 

The post Iceland Joins ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel appeared first on The Reykjavik Grapevine.