"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 for me. 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
