Works > Landráð III: Unearthing - District (performance)

Shit

Droppings

White dung, gold

Guano

Soil

Pure Guano

Shit

Guano rush

White gold

This is the story of the bird cormorant, the sea raven and its excrements, Guano.

For centuries Guano was known as an organic fertilizer in South America, used by the Inca’s, the “world” did not become aware of it until the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt sneezed.

I am told it happened on his trip in South America, soon after he climbed mountain Chimborazo in Ecuador, the highest mountain above earth’s center. On the Chimborazo mountaintop, which no Man had climbed before and reached such heights and breathed such thin air, Humboldt found his love of nature. He stood on the mountaintop and began to see the world differently, that everything is connected and that nature has to be experienced by feeling.

But it wasn’t until on the docks in Peru, where shipments of Guano where passing him by, that he sneezed. The powder of the white gold entered his body and called out for a natural reaction. As Humboldt sneezed, his scrotum contracted in a sudden spasm.

(Excerpt from Landráð II: Unearthing)


As an artist and The Many Headed Hydra companion in residency in Nida, Bryndís unearthed a tale about wellness tourism in exoticized landscapes by juxtaposing the sands of Iceland, Sahara and Nida as wastelands for projections. In District Bryndís aligns herself with a key figure in marking the reading of land in Nida beyond to the plastisphere: The story of the cormorant is a glimpse into the smelly and hot com-post realms of modernity or a Peter and the Wolf narration told with enhanced sensory organs.