ICELAND.- The Akureyri Art Museum presents Homesick – Act I participating artists: Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Chantal Michel (Switzerland), Nevin Aladag (Turkey), Katrin Sigurðardóttir (Iceland), Haraldur Jónsson (Iceland), Libia Pérez de Silles Castro & Ólafur Arni Ólafsson (Iceland/Spain). The exhibition in Akureri forms the starting point of the HOMESICK Project, a series of exhibitions in co-operation with the CIA.IS – the Center for Icelandic Art / Akureyri Art Museum (Iceland), Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center Istanbul (Turkey) and the Center for Contemporary Art (Israel).

Homesickness is a term used in a number of languages to express illness, pain or a longing for one’s distant home. Homesickness is a concrete feeling or a romantic term. It is childish, antiquated and yet current and relevant since it touches on the question of one’s own (individual or collective, ethnic or cultural) identity. The question of what ‘home’ can signify in times of globalised societies, which leads on to the question of what is signified by ‘homesickness’, can be put both concretely and metaphorically. The question can be grasped as an approach both towards the subjective phenomenon of people yearning for a sense of belonging and towards a cultural or ethnic group’s collective pursuit of identity.

It was also its assonant double entendre that caused HOMESICK to be chosen as the laconic title of the exhibition project in which the desire to leave home is likewise expressed: to be sick of home. The globalised world economy demands modern nomadism from the individual; the home becomes a claustrophobic nightmare, escape represents freedom.

The HOMESICK Project will vary the theme at its four exhibition stations in 2006/2007. With Turkey, Israel, Switzerland and Iceland the project concentrates on four countries located on the outer fringe of the European Union. The project is dealt with before a background of quite diverse historical and current processes. It begins in Iceland before undergoing further development for the subsequent stations of Istanbul (Platform Garanti, December 2006), Tel Aviv (Center for Contemporary Art, spring 2007) and Switzerland (summer 2007).

The artists invited to HOMESICK – Act I approach the subject field both in a subjective-emotional and in an intellectual or culturally theoretical manner. The works of the three Icelandic positions correspond to those of the three guest artists. Directly or indirectly they ask the viewers to question his or her own moods.

Guy Ben-Ner (Israel, born in 1969) represented Israel at the Biennale in 2005 in Venice and currently lives in New York. His own four walls often provide the setting and he or his own family are the protagonists of his metaphoric video works.

Nevin Aladag (Turkey, born in 1972) lives in Berlin. The work she will present here reflects the search of young Turks living in Germany for an identity of their own – a search that is strongly expressed in music and dance. Chantal Michel (Switzerland, born in 1968) enters alien private spheres for her performances, videos and staged photography. The nature of her physical presence is a threat to the intimacy of the home.

Haraldur Jónsson (Iceland, born 1961) targets subjective perception. His works, which he calls psychosomatic sculptures, focus directly on the viewer, confronting him/her physically and intellectually with the materialisation of emotional sensations.
Home as a site and a concept is one of the central themes present in the works by Katrin Sigurðardóttir (Iceland, born in 1967). The artist’s signature use of miniature models is often used to explore the ways in which the experience of one place is entangled in the memory of other places.

Libia Pérez de Silles Castro (Spain, born in 1971) & Ólafur Arni Ólafsson (Iceland, born in 1973)have been working as a team since 1996, occupying public spaces with their installations. Their socially critical approach touches on socio-political themes and seeks to involve the visitor through active participation.