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320 Icelanders
Varvara Lozenko
Published on 25/03/14
When I first came to Iceland in summer 2007 I was amazed by the contrast between the vast uninhabited and immaculate space, looking exactly like it did 200, 300 or 500 years ago and the tiny population numbering just some 320 thousand people. Also, I found it striking how very modest the people are in respect to nature: no pipelines, no factories, not even any man-made historical monuments of a UNESCO-ish importance. I questioned a number of Icelanders why they think their country is so different from any other places. The most common answer was ‘Because we are so few: there are no crowds, no competition, no stress. We are not each other’s rivals the way it is in so many other countries. We have learnt to respect everyone’s uniqueness and live in a community where everyone is important.And I decided to photograph 320 people by the number of thousands of the country’s population. Every portrait stands for 1000 people. That’s why I needed to travel all around the country and take portrait pictures of Icelanders of different age, social status, doing different jobs, from farming to fishing, carpentry, cargo driving, preaching and bread-baking. It had to be young, middle-aged, elderly people, children and babies. So far I have taken pictures of around 160 people during 3 trips to Iceland. I presume that I need something like two more months in Iceland to accomplish my project, bring the portrait number to 320.
So far I can say for sure that every person from the ‘320 Icelanders’ project has been a unique experience, a story — a shorter or a longer one — in my life, for which I feel very thankful.