Valdimar Thoralacius - "..."

The exhibition “···” is a visual interpretation of my perception of small towns, weather and wide-open spaces in Iceland, and at the same time a documentation of village life. In my work on the project I travelled between places which fulfilled certain criteria, based on Statistics Iceland’s definition of the size and composition of urban communities with up to 500 inhabitants. I photographed whatever attracted my attention in the villages – the surroundings of the people who live in these communities – and placed it in a broader context: Iceland, the island, says the photographer.

The objective is not to present some absolute truth about life in small Icelandic towns. I show selected moments, and invite the observer to fill in the gaps. It is almost impossible to approach absolute truth in a photograph, as the interpretation is always that of the observer. The reality of the works is thus a joint conclusion of what was photographed, and the perceptions of the observer of the photographs.

Valdimar Thorlacius

Valdimar Thorlacius studied photography at the School of Photography in Reykjavík, graduating in 2014. His degree project, 1-ONE, was published in book form after the degree show, and received a grant from the Magnús Ólafsson Memorial Fund that year. In 2015 he held his first solo show at the National Museum of Iceland, comprising pictures from 1-One, coinciding with the publication of the second edition of the book by Crymogea. The work has been shown at exhibitions abroad, notably a solo show at the Les Boréales arts festival in France in 2017.