Reykjavík Museum of Photography

Photographer Agnieszka Sosnowska in collaboration with poet Ingunn Snædal has created a visual with the verbal narrative that asks, “What happened here?”

A dialogue of curiousity and spirituality. Together both women ask, “How do you control the uncontrollable?” It is a visual narrative about land erosion, breakdown of the land in East Iceland created by wind, water, animal grazing, permafrost and tourism. 


In this visual narrative they ask, “How do you control the uncontrollable?”

Behind these landscapes lies a conversation between the women many years ago regarding a local tragedy. A farmer who lived on an isolated farm on Jökuldalsheiði committed suicide, but he had been suffering from depression. His wife told their children to sit and wait with the father’s body while she left on foot to seek help.

The women have both wondered what this experience was like for the children. What did they talk about while they waited? Did they comfort each other? Were they angry or scared? Was this overwhelming to them? Did they understand what had happened?

These photographs are an attempt to find that conversation in the land and the people. 


Agnieszka Sosnowska (b.1971) was born in Warsaw, Poland. She immigrated to the United States at the age of three with her parents. They settled in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a Light Works artist in residence in 2023. The culmination of 20 years of photographs created in East Iceland will be published by Trespasser books in 2024, a monograph entitled “För”

She has been a full-time elementary school teacher for the past 25 years. In 2003 she moved to Iceland in 2003 and has lived on the farm Kleppjárnsstaðir in East Iceland for the past twenty years. She has been a full-time elementary school teacher for the past twenty-five years and teaches English in a small rural school in the area.


Ingunn Snædal (1971) is a poet, translator, literary editor and teacher. She has translated over 100 novels and children’s books from Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, English and Icelandic, and received several nominations and accolades for her translations. Ingunn has also translated plays and poetry, edited novels and translated and proofread for art museums, theatres and travel guides for many years. She has published six well-received books of poetry, for which she’s won awards and nominations, and her poetry has been translated into English, German, Norwegian and Turkish, for example. She lives in Reykjavík, Iceland. 

Agnieszka Sosnowska & Ingunn Snædal│RASK( en)

Have you ever tried to collect broken pieces together with the belief that you can fix them? Can you return those bits to their original state? Are they ever the same? Are they stronger or weaker than they once were?

Ag­nieszka Sosnowska & In­gunn Snædal│RASK( en)

Have you ever tried to collect broken pieces together with the belief that you can fix them? Can you return those bits to their original state? Are they ever the same? Are they stronger or weaker than they once were?

Agnieszka Sosnowska & Ingunn Snædal│RASK( en)