Interview with Roni Horn "When you see you in the water, do you feel the water in you?"

- Much of your work is inspired by Iceland.

Actually, I don't know either. When I was eight years old, I first learned about the news after the assassination of President Kennedy. I remember being excited when I heard the news about an island that was born in the southwest of Iceland, even though it was being reported on TV all the time. Aerial footage showed smoke rising from the ocean and a new island emerging days later. I'm not sure if this news strengthened my impression of Iceland, but it's my first memory of the land.

After graduating from university at the age of 19, Iceland was the first overseas destination I traveled to. I was attracted by the fact that it was an island and the fact that it had a very small population, which I think was about 150,000 at the time. It doesn't get any more interesting than here! I was looking forward to feeling the nature and isolation of this island.

- The work "Pi" [Pi] (1997/2004) featuring a couple collecting eider feathers was produced in Iceland over a period of 6-7 years. By showing the work, which is displayed in a ring-like position slightly above the viewer's line of sight, from the center of the room, it seems to guide the concept of space-time and how to view the sequence. How did you come up with this approach?

Let's change things up a bit. The reason why I'm arranging it to look around the venue is because this work represents a collection of circulating events. The initial impetus was to photograph what is geographically considered the Arctic Circle. Then, I met Björn and Hilda, who were the subject of this work, and they collected the abandoned nests made from the chest feathers of eider ducks at their breeding farm. During the time I spent with them, I first learned about a home drama called "Guiding Light", as I had never watched TV when I was a child. Every day at 5:00 in the evening, they used to finish their work and watch TV, so I decided to follow their example. At the beginning of Guiding Light, there is a wonderful scene showing the rotating lights of a lighthouse. Their property also had a lighthouse, but I liked the drama footage better, so I added a TV screen facsimile to the series. This is another collection.

During my long stay in Iceland, I witnessed the ecology of various birds and their cycles of life. I photograph dead birds there, as well as flocks of live birds. In addition, photographs of the horizon where the screen is divided into upper and lower halves are interspersed to create a sense of unity in the series. The head-on shots of the native Icelandic animals are all stuffed animals, but they look kind of funny.