Kristina Stallvik
ACT 1: THE WHEELHOUSE
Nylistasafnid / The Living Art Museum (Reykjavik, Iceland)
Limbo project space
April, 2023
In collaboration with Nickie Sigurdsson
In 1990, the Fisheries Management Act legalized privatization of the commons – fish stocks in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Accomplished through a system of Individually Transferable Quotas (ITQs), the act allowed fishermen to freely trade their limited share of the total annual harvesting rights. Conceived during an era characterized by surges of over-fishing, ITQs were easily justified as a mechanism to halt the near constant threat of depleted species populations. However, this management approach encouraged mega-fisheries to purchase the governmentally allocated fishing allowances of smaller vessels, reconfiguring the previous constellation of active docks into a clear center and periphery. Active fishing towns are now retirement destinations. Ghost infrastructure from harvesting, gutting, and packing processes is either left to decompose or transformed into creative spaces through ulterior government funds. Precarious conditions - a reliance on the emergent, so called “Quota Kings” - continue to thrive under the ITQ-regime.
Designed in correlation with the installation’s location - the Marshallhúsid at Reykjavik’s Old Harbor - Act 1: The Wheelhouse is composed of three live feeds of publicly accessible footage captured by the Faxaflóahafnir Associated Icelandic Ports’ webcams. One of the cameras is mounted on the side of the building, another captures it in the corner of the frame. Due to the relatively slow advancement of Quota Kings, it is difficult to recount the quasi-events responsible for their infrastructural violence. We wondered if these livestreams could provide a model for observation under different temporal conditions, those of the cyborg. During the course of the installation, a new playground was constructed at the previously abandoned harbor site. Military vehicles and disgustingly large cruise ships docked and left. The Old Harbor continues to be reconfigured in real-time, this installation at Nýlistasafnið itself contributing to the redistribution of space and industry.
Supported by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA)