The City as an Organism

(2016)
The project was developed during a granted residency stay at The Creative Centre in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland.

Stöðvarfjörður is a small village on the east coast of Iceland. In 2005, the 2800m2 fishing factory closed, which employed about a quarter of the residents, a significant loss for a town with only 200 inhabitants. As a result, people left the town, leading to the closure of the bank and post office. Due to the significant population decline, the kindergarten and primary school also faced potential closure, which would mean the demise of the town. In 2010, the Creative Centre opened an artist residency in this old fishing factory, breathing new life into the town, which experienced a different kind of transformation once again. The domino effect that the town experienced is a classic example of the challenges faced by small towns in Denmark, and Stöðvarfjörður can be used as a case study to examine this development. How can the town's development, on the brink of decline and now possibly revitalization, be mapped? And how is this artificial breath that the Creative Centre brings perceived? How has the town evolved and is still evolving? I view the town as an organism, where the fishing factory is the heart of the organism, and the houses are cells, and the movement between them is the residents' movements that connect them - like veins. It is a tree root structure: the fishing factory as the main root, from which other root nodes branch out, unlike Deleuze's rhizome structure. But what happened to the cells (houses, residents) when the heart stopped beating (the fishing factory closed), did the organism change its structure? And how does the organism receive this new heart (Creative Centre)? The town's circulation has changed over time, and it is this development that I have mapped and unfolded in various scales and sub-elements:

1: Mapping - I have acted as a cartographer and mapped the development of the organism over time through a long timeline.
2: Archive - Constructed an archive of all the cells/houses and examined the development of, among other things, the movement between the factory and the houses, and a micrological landscape in motion in each house.
3: The Observer - Anthropological studies. The experience of the town's development and movement from the citizens' perspective. Stories, memories, and emotions. This part is crucial for assessing the new development - the new state.

By giving shape to these three sub-elements, they can be connected, and one can uncover and unravel cause and effect in relation to the development and the so-called domino effect, thereby assessing the effect and quality of the town's development. This compilation can resemble a kind of archaeological or criminological activity. The project is an attempt to visualize a development, a pattern, a transformation. I will create form binders by giving shape to something that has been shapeless until now. Stöðvarfjörður has undergone some changes that are very interesting and relevant in examining what happens to a village when an intervention is created that tries to change and influence development. Stöðvarfjörður is used as a case study in examining similar conditions and potential solutions in Denmark.