Ian James Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fine Arts Otis College of Art & Design Faculty Development Grant Report 2016- The Faculty Development Grant funded my travel and lodging expenses for the Samband Íslenskra Myndlistarmanna (SÍM) Residency this past July in Reykjavik, Iceland. SÍM is the Association of Icelandic Artists, which runs several studio buildings throughout the Icelandic capital and runs an international residency program at two of these sites. Project Background: I ve been developing a body of work around natural bathing pools created by geothermic springs in the Western U.S. for the past several years. The project includes sites in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. I m interested in the subculture which dates back millennia of communal bathing, in this case, specifically in the vulnerability of bathing with friends and strangers in remote parts of the wilderness such as deserts, dry lakes, salt flats, forests, etc. Researching and investigating sites of interest has also introduced various other writers of guide books and photographers of interest into the work. The locations are often difficult to travel to, requiring high clearance, four-wheel drive vehicles and pleasant weather conditions. The sites themselves often are constructed and maintained by anonymous persons, sometimes in conflict with government or private landowners. The project spans across media including photographs, sculptures, videos, installations, and collected ephemera. Residency and Proposal: Iceland is an epicenter of geothermic activity as it straddles the North American and European continental plates and was created by volcanic eruptions from this volatile seam two million years ago, making it a relatively young piece of terrain. The Icelandic culture has celebrated communal bathing throughout the country for over a thousand years at sites more and less rustic which offered a great opportunity to expand my work on the subject, as well as study another culture s perspective. I applied to the SÍM residency under the proposition of creating specific work built out of a weeklong trip to twenty or so sites around the country, as well as afterwards in my studio in Reykjavik. A preliminary body of this work was shown in a group exhibition in the SÍM gallery in downtown Reykjavik in late July, towards the end of the residency period.
Work Abstract: The artwork exhibited consisted of images shot with a large format film camera, processed under less-than-ideal circumstances through a facility run by the Icelandic Film Photography Association, and exhibited as large format laser prints. The prints themselves were images of film as shot on a light table bearing the marks of the process, as well as layered with pagan Icelandic witchcraft staves, themselves an historic drawn placeholder for a spell, as well as diagrams and formulas from Thorkell Thorkellson s 1904 expeditionary report The Hot Springs of Iceland which details the journey from the Northeast to the Southwest of the country to discover and measure numerous hot springs throughout the island to determine, among other things, radioactivity and mineral makeup. In a larger sense, I m interested in how a photograph communicates information. These works, which also included a found spare tire cover for a Mitsubishi SUV which I drew upon, were attempts to compress information into the photographic plane. Further work will come out of this project as I still have a large amount of film to process, as well as video and other material to consider. This work will likely matriculate into a body of work that I will look to exhibit at a later date.
Draumstafu (dream stave) (Hvergerdi~~Myvatn) T. Thorkellson 1904 20x30
Kaupaloki (deal-closer?) (Hoffell) 16.4x24.5
Svefnthorn (sleep thorn): Djupavogskorin) lambswool springs testing instrument diagram 16.4x24.5
Carry this sign with you; it protects from all sorcery (Ostakario) 16.4x24.5