Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson

This image was taken during our exhibition at Straumur, The Last Minute Show, where we welcomed visitors to the opening and part of the show dressed in the two versions of the traditional Icelandic women’s costume; as Peysuföt and Upphlutur. The photograph was taken in the lava landscape where the exhibition space was situated, opposite AlcanRio Tinto’s aluminium factory. We were playing with shifts in the representation of identity, memories of stereotypical images of landscapes, and farmers at the beginning of the century in Iceland, who would have themselves photographed in front of their farm houses, often with the whole family and workers. In our case we were using a construct; a pre-existing costume representative of folk and nation, but obviously rather differently, since Libia is not Icelandic, Ólafur is not a woman, and the background was an aluminium factory and not a farm.

Throughout our collaborative work we have made several self portraits, representing different ideas and moments in our work. They are part of our interventionist and performative approach and they reflect, amongst other things, on the paradoxes and absurdities of everyday existence and our understanding of the codes and roles that constitute it.