Ride the Currents of Iceland

Text Stewart Johnson
Photo Kumu

Ragnar Kjartansson, Margarét Bjarnadóttir & Bryce Dessner. No Tomorrow. 2022. Video installation. Commissioned by Sigurður Gísli Pálmason; based on a commission by the Iceland Dance Company. Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine (New York) and the i8 Gallery (Reykjavík)

Kumu’s Courtyard Festival is back for a second year, this time celebrating the art and culture of Iceland with its programme, “Icelandic Currents”. On Saturday, 7 June, Kumu’s lovely courtyard will be filled with creatives with a strong connection to Iceland, as well as creatives from the tiny island nation itself. Workshops, exhibitions, live music, and food featuring Iceland and the Nordics in general will be available to visitors.

This year’s Kumu Courtyard Festival is in connection with one of the art museum’s newer exhibitions, which opened in mid-May. Ragnar Kjartansson, an Icelandic video artist and painter, presents his solo exhibition, “A Boy and a Girl and a Bush and a Bird”. He is considered one of the “most fascinating and idiosyncratic artists in the contemporary international art scene”, according to Kumu.

This is a family-friendly event starting at noon. A ticket is required for entrance to the Kumu museum itself, but the day’s programme for “Icelandic Currents” is free. Various events in the programme do require an extra fee however, for example a workshop on how to make kombucha, and a workshop on the finest fish of Saaremaa.

From noon until 16:00, visitors to the courtyard event can enjoy live Icelandic music. After that, there will be a DJ, and two other bands giving performances. Simultaneously, there will be a treasure hunt for children, a guided tour of Kjartansson’s solo exhibition, a performative installation titled “Eruption”—this is an Icelandic theme, so you probably know what to expect—and much more.

The event officially ends at 21:00, and you can read the full programme here. As always, there are several other exhibitions in Kumu, as well as the spectacular architecture of the building itself, so why not make a full day of it?

To learn more about this and similar topics
Events in Tallinn Exhibition Fish Iceland Kumu Tallinn