Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson

The work Everybody is doing what they can is a group of 35 portraits/interviews depicting people of from every level of Icelandic society, from the famous to the anonymous. These included: a minister, CEOs, homeless people, politicians, artists, people with mental/physical disabilities, actors, a comedian, an art historian, migrants, writers, a journalist, activists, a parking attendant, café owners, economists, philosophers, bank employees, an architect, a designer and a sexologist. We used the gallery space for the recordings, setting up a studio in the middle of the space and thus turning it into an active site of production and reflection.

During filming we interviewed these people informally, asking them questions about their backgrounds, their professions, and the position of those professions in relation to society as a whole. At the same time we used a varying palette of elements – coloured lights, disco ball, smoke machine, stroboscope, confetti, flags and blankets – to alter and disturb both the recording and our models as they posed for us and answered our questions.

The economic crash of 2008 happened in Iceland just as we were making this work, and the site became a place for reflection and debate during the process.