Weather Reports You

The site of VATNASAFN has a particular history with regard to the weather. The first attempts to methodically record meteorological conditions in Iceland were initiated in Stykkishólmur in the mid-19th century, on the site of the present library.

An important aspect of the VATNASAFN project involves an alternative kind of weather reporting. Horn has recorded about one hundred people from the Snaefelness region talking about the weather. These 'reports' form a kind of collective portrait of Iceland, mediated by the distinctive voices and experiences of individual Icelanders.

The Weather Reports include descriptions, reflections, memories and stories based on specific experiences of the weather. The testimonies range from the remarkable to the ordinary, the mundane to the marvelous, the provincial to the worldly, the philosophical to the didactic. The different nuances and usages of language, along with the idioms and mannerisms of each individual, suggest that the weather is more than simply a state of the atmosphere with regard to meteorological conditions. In Horn’s words, “weather is a metaphor for the atmosphere of the world; weather is a metaphor for the atmosphere of one’s life; weather is a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social, and moral energy of a person and a place.”