Nökkvi Elíasson and Brian Sweeney │Deserted Farms

Reykjavík Museum of Photography

The deserted farms of Nokkvi’s photographs appear in black-and-white, remote, sepulchral, yet majestic; however, Brian’s colour images seem, by virtue of the colour alone, to be closer to our time, almost as though the homes had been abandoned hurriedly only a few minutes before the picture was taken. But the photographs in the exhibition are not only of vacant farmsteads: they reveal the interplay of unusual light patterns, magnificent landscape, and rare photographic composition. Isolated and forsaken houses crouching beneath a forbidding sky make the pictures as dramatic as we experience them, but neither must one forget all of the ordinary and symbolic mementoes of daily life left behind by the inhabitants – souvenirs that give us a glimpse of a vanished era.

Last but not least are the “memories that live in every corner,” because the departed inhabitants left a large part of themselves in their derelict homes – bittersweet memories of times past.

Nokkvi Eliasson is an amateur photographer living in Reykjavik. He began his photography career about 15 years ago, concentrating mostly on black-and-white images. For the past decade he has dedicated himself to photographing deserted farms and other abandoned buildings. His work has appeared widely on book jackets, in programmes, and in newspapers. Among the most recent articles was a two-page feature in Morgunblaðið Newspaper in September 1997, which centred on his photographs of abandoned farmsteads.

Although this is his first exhibition, he has maintained an impressive Website with many of his best pictures. The Website has attracted attention all over the world and was the subject of an article in the prestigious newspaper The New York Times. The site can be seen [here](http://www.islandia.is/~nokkvi/sida1.htm?48,68). 
   

Scottish photographer Brian Sweeney has been taking pictures for ten years. Following a course in print and design, Brian worked as a trainee photographer at the East End Management Agency - a youth development scheme in Glasgow’s East End. He went from there to work for several Scottish newspapers, before moving to London to study for a postgraduate qualification in professional photography, at the London College of Printing. Since then, Brian has been contributing to some of the world’s leading music and lifestyle magazines, and mentions Microsoft and Ford among his corporate clients. He has shown his pictures in Glasgow, Manchester and London, including a contribution to an exhibition at the doomed Millennium Dome. He now lives in Iceland with his family, and takes pictures there too.

Nökkvi Elías­son and Brian Sweeney │Deser­ted Farms

This joint exhibition consists of about forty photographs, black and white and colour, taken of deserted farms across Iceland.

Nökkvi Elíasson and Brian Sweeney │Deserted Farms