Icelandic family-run art collective, Fischersund, will present its first-ever museum exhibition and the world premiere of Faux Flora, an immersive multimedia exhibition integrating scent, sound, sculpture, 3D-graphics, and photography at the National Nordic Museum this fall.
The exhibition draws upon the multidisciplinary artistic talents of Jónsi, lead vocalist of the renowned post-rock band Sigur Rós, and his sisters Inga, Lilja, and Sigurrós. Faux Flora is inspired by the small number of native plant species in Iceland, as well as the scientific relationship between scent and memory.
Faux Flora invents new plant species, the perfume and appearance of which elicit emotions and experiences. The exhibition is a sensorial display of human existence shown through the lens of plants. The plant life cycle—germination, growth, flowering, seed formation, and dispersal—is thus superimposed on the life cycle of a human. Imagined flora springs from universal experiences—birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, and old age.
Today, technology permeates every aspect of our existence, and the distinction between natural and artificial is increasingly blurred. Faux Flora explores this idea further by creating a new world of conceptualized botany.
Faux Flora will open on November 8 with a scented concert in which Jónsi will perform with Sin Fang of the band Seabear and composer Kjartan Holm. To encourage exploration of the exhibition and its themes, the Museum has organized exhibition-related talks. On November 14, botanist Dr. Pawel Wasowicz of the Icelandic Institute of Natural History will trace the history and impact of plant immigration to Iceland; and on December 5, leading researcher Dr. Venkatesh Murthy, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Director of the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University, will talk about the connections between scent, memory, and emotion.
Fischersund: Faux Flora is organized by the National Nordic Museum’s Chief Curator, Leslie Anderson, in collaboration with the artists.
