"have you heard of the hidden people in iceland?"
i came to eastern iceland for the fish factory’s march residency, planning to make work about uncertainty: the trust and fall of drifting through shapeless nomadic wandering. but the land had other ideas. the howling wind of a stormy night stilled my body mid-step. shadowy figures flickered at the edge of my vision. seals appeared, then vanished. a falling starfish from the sky, like a sign. it wasn’t magical at first. it was disorienting. haunting, even. a hush.
what surfaced in the quiet was shame. the kind tied to childhood. of being the strangest in the crowd. of being exposed without protection.
but the weirdlings i met in the fog didn’t turn away. they mirrored my strangeness back to me—not with fear, but with a friendly invitation, and with a boldness that shattered the bubble i no longer fit in. play and community became a way through. making became a way of listening.
these spirit forms are unlike anything i’ve made before.
they carry that time with me—those weeks in the fjord—lifting shameful memories one by one, letting go by returning stones to the shore, softening the edge of old self-images. they came through the fog and helped me birth something i still don’t fully understand
