Northern Silence: Residency in Skagaströnd
Type: Artist Residency / Field Research
Location: Skagaströnd, Iceland
Duration: 3 months (Year)
Status: Completed
https://neslist.is/artist-in-residence-anna-katrine-thuesen/
In 2021, I spent three months in the remote fishing village of Skagaströnd, Iceland, as part of the NES Artist Residency. The time was used to explore isolation, weather, and the visual language of landscapes shaped by wind and water. This period became a creative foundation for the narrative pacing and framing techniques I later brought into projects like RWY Tales and Himalayan Wolves.
While no single finished work emerged from the residency, it remains a formative chapter in how I work — rooted in slow observation, environmental texture, and letting place shape story.
plein air
I accompanied fine artist Sarah Thibault into the field on a plein air excursion. Painting outdoors provides it's own challenges for fine artists, but being outdoors in Iceland gives it a whole new edge.
Finally, plein air does give the art work some spontaneity and something fresh that a studio painting possibly doesn't always capture.
Icelandic Encounters: Reynir
I met Reynir Katrínar who gets his inspiration for his knitting and weaving patterns through meditation. At the time when I met him he lived in an old church.
When he enters a state of meditation he is visited by past lives, including a chinese lady who told him about a specific weaving pattern. I thought it was a nice anecdote and interesting how different people experience when inspiration “strikes”.
Icelandic Encounters is a series of chats with people met I've during my filmmaking residency at NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd.
Searching for Impressions in North Iceland
First week in Iceland at my residency. I am finding my footing with my new equipment and getting back to editing in Premiere. I tried to prescribe some meaning to this video other than just being a bit of a highlight reel of the past week.
One of my favorite 'things' about the arctic or high north is the light. Pastel colors when the sun sets and rises, everywhere. At the same time I arrived searching for a lot of answers, and so the camera often pretends to look for keys or something in the snow. This video is how I encountered this place, physically but also how it looked like inside of me: Searching for an answer to a question I am not familiar with, and haven't a clue where to find.
Music royalty free by Tribe of Noise.
Shot on Sony Alpha A7SIII and DJI Mini Mavic 2