On show: the observance of short days / venjur à stuttum dögum

THE OBSERVANCE OF SHORT DAYS / VENJUR À STUTTUM DÖGUM
a work in progress

PREVIEW SHOW OPENING: Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Listhús í Fjallabyggð, Ólafsfjörður, Iceland

Over the Icelandic midwinter, we've been living in Ólafsfjörður, a place of silent snow and near-endless nights, where darkness creeps into the brightest of spaces and lives.

Our work offers glimpses of existence in this intersection of light and dark - in still photographs, words and audio soundscapes - from public locations to the most intimate spaces, a study of life during skammdegi, its celebrations and struggles.

Please join us for a drink at the opening.
Show runs to 10 February.

With support from the Listhús SKAMMEDEGI AIR Award.

Instagramming the extra-ordinary

Wherever we've been, we've been documenting the things/moments/flashes of beauty that catch our eye. We call it our Logbook.

Now, you can follow some of our wanderings on Instagram, @theextra.ordinary.

They're our non-sequential picks of the best of what we've stumbled over, with GPS coordinates for you to find them too.

Icelandic skammdegi

As one of the recipients of the Skammdegi Listhús AIR Award, we will be spending the depths of midwinter in Ólafsfjördur, a mountain-ringed fishing village on Iceland's northernmost coast, as artists in residence at Listhús í Fjallabyggð.

We'll be working on a series of projects, structured around documenting the everyday and exploring narratives, real and imagined.

Observance: Life in the dark

We'll be capturing lives in the dark as part of a documentary series - in still photographs and audio soundscapes - from public locations to the most intimate spaces, a study of life during skammedegi, its celebrations and struggles.

Habitat: a map of troll lairs

We'll be going on the hunt for Iceland's Huldufólk in an attempt to map and photograph potential troll habitats in the nearby mountains; both a process and project in itself, producing a photographic map, alongside the forensic documentation of our research in archived notes, drawings and interviews.

Lost and Found

We'll be collecting objects washed up by the tide, photographing them in situ and again on a forensic studio table to accompany a collection of short stories about each found object, inspired by local tales, the mythical and personal.

Despite arriving in December's darkest days, we'll be there just in time to experience and photograph what's predicted to some of the most spectacular Northern Lights in a decade.

Hellenic summer

We'll be in Greece for most of the European summer, finishing up our documentation of Athenian graffiti and wandering through the Greek myths.

If you're interested in finding out more about either of those projects, or commissioning other pieces, please do get in touch.

In the meantime, for a little inspiration, have a look at some of the travel & lifestyle work we've already done from the Greek islands.

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Fevereiro in Moçambique

We spent most of sweltering February in Mozambique, where we went on the hunt for one Portuguese architect's hidden masterpieces, documented some of the surprising spaces where Maputo's residents live, work and play, and spent some time between trains filled with dancing musicians and a few of the world's most beautiful beaches.

If you want to find out more about the work from that trip, or to commission a stand-alone piece, please do get in touch.

Grateful thanks to Jane and Walter who hunted for Pancho Guedes' masterpieces with us, Phil who sent us up north, and the metal sculptor Gonçalo Mabunda, who put us up in his spare room, above his artist's workshop of disused ammunition and car radiators. Muito, muito obrigado.