Hello dear friends of LungA School <3

Welcome back to the LungA School newsletter. If you know anyone who you think might like to receive it then do suggest they get in touch!

First off, we are happy to share that in December of 2025 the Icelandic Ministry for Education and School Services granted LungA School recognition as a folk school for the next five years. In addition to this, the Ministry of Education and Children's Affairs has also granted us a new contract for the year, so it’s exciting to be able to start the new year with this recognition and support, and we are very grateful.

We are still seeking ways to continue to deliver the LAND Program and build on the investment the school, the community and the ERASMUS have put into this work of the the last two years, and hope to have more news about this soon.

The Winter/Spring Program has begun, organised by Lotte Rose Kjær Skau and Þórir Freyr Höskuldsson, and with Þórir, Mariana Murcia, and Lasse Høgenhof welcoming the participants here to the fjord at the start of this month, just in time for Þrettándinn. For this programme the school is joined by artists-in-residence, Mahzaib Baloch and Karólína Rós Ólafsdóttir, and with local chef Keith Preston taking on the LungA Kitchen at Norð Austur.

The program has already been busy making, with two exhibitions of new work by the participants of the school: PR-Axis at HEIMA, and Get n the Car Hug a Rock at locations around town, and workshops with artists Sara-Vide Ericson, Aðalheiður Eysteinsdóttir, Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, Þórður Hans Baldursson.

This past fall we were occupied with cleaning, wishing for an empty room just to fill it with things we could not yet imagine. And then, we filled it with things and it was hard to remember how it felt when we couldn't imagine. Here you can enter the room and listen, all the things sound, you can spend an entire day here and not notice.

The Blue Hour And All The Rest was our final gathering, a listening room and a tribute to the praxis we are still getting to know and learning to love. The Blue Hour and All The Rest was a 24 hour exhibition over the radio and throughout big and small spaces in Seydisfjordur - - - from darkness to darkness - - - made and conceived by the participants of the program Unpredictable Fruit, Fall/Winter 25' at the LungA School.

The 2025 iteration of the LungA Radio School dissolved in December, and here are two small gifts from the last weeks that was lingering in our hearts - a play rehearsal and a concluding broadcast for our school choir “every vessel holds a song.” Hope you will enjoy them as much as we enjoyed being present within them - and if you want to explore more, please find it all here in this little archive:

In 2026 the Radio School will find and explore new forms and modes of engagement, but for now we rest and digest - and then in a few months or so we will launch and share “The Radio School Newsletter” in which you will be able to get an overview of, Content, Open Calls and how to connect, commit and keep schooling together over radio. 

Last year, COSMOS comissioned a film about Seyðisfjörður from Seyðisfjörður Community Radio in collaboration with filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and long-time LungA collaborator, Austin Thomasson. The film consists of archival footage collected from the extended Seyðisfjörður community, private documentation of exhibitions, performances, festivals and concerts, but also homemovies, dinners, and much more with the support of the team behind Seyðisfjörður Community Radio and LungA School.

Below is a link to an interview with Austin about the making of the film:

There are always too many things to share. A visit to the fjord and the school from the art students at LHÍ, some new things half-formed appearing on the horizon. And many of the janitors here have been out sharing their practices and visiting other places in which art happens and is talked about. Some recent and upcoming include:

On the 8th January, Mariana Murcia gave a talk on her practice and collaborations with humans, non-humans and places, at the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW, as part of Art Taaalkssss, curated by Filipa Ramos. The talk will eventually be available online so we will keep a look out for that and let you know!

For those of you based nearby, LungA crew have exhibitions coming up this year at Skaftfell Art Center, here in Seyðisfjörður, with Marina and Lotte’s exhibition from Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, “It is no longer possible to map any distance,” coming to Skaftfell on 8th May. And Heiðdís Hólm will be showing all new paintings at the Skaftfell’s West Wall Gallery on the 13th March.

In April, Heiðdís and Mark Rohtmaa-Jackson will be travelling to the Faroe Islands seeking to connect LungA School with Føroya Fólkaháskúli, folk schools at opposite ends of the Smyril Line ferry between Seyðisfjörður and Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands. This has been kindly supported by the Foundation for Danish-Icelandic Co-operation. At Føroya Fólkaháskúli Heiðdís and Mark will be running workshops on painting and exhibition-making, under the title of: Painting as Letter, as Gift, as Communication.

Lastly, in April and into May, Mark will be running an online Curating course with IMT Gallery, London, on Curating at Home, drawing on some of the work they’ve been part of here at the school, as well as co-curating the exhibition The House, with the gallery’s Director, Lindsay Friend, which opens on the 5 March. Links to the onsite exhibition and online course below:

It is with an echo of sadness and magic in our hearts that we have to share with our community that our dear friend, collaborator and protector Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon (Goddur) has passed. 

Goddur has ever since the dawn of even imagining this school, been an advocate, a caretaker and a fearless critical mind, igniting and nurturing this flame that is burning between us. 

Goddur has shared his world, his facilities, his community, his stories, his photos, his presence, his practice, his home, his feelings, his sweat and his life with us, in a constant and generous search for cracks for the unlikely artistic bodies to nest and shimmer.

Goddur - we will miss you, but we will also remember you - because we still need you with us, to keep the flame and to search for cracks to exist.

We found this little nugget recorded during the LungA Festival in 2017 - including both wonderful predictive life lessons and sensible fashion advice :)

We are also so truely sad to hear news of the recent death of Björn Roth early this year, who played a crucial role in supporting the LungA Festival and establishing the LungA School.

Björn Roth truly believed in LungA in addition to supporting and inspiring the art scene in Seyðisfjörður, so integral to the school's presence here.

He was a big fan of the festival and the LungA ethos, writing letters of support back in the early days when the festival first gave a glimpse of what would eventually be the school.

Björn's support helped considerably with the first bids for financial support and with rallying people around the ideas of what LungA would become. Bjort Sigfinnsdóttir, one of the founders of both the school and festival, found his sparring and encouragement invaluable, especially in the early years when the challenge of creating and maintaining a festival and school would have been insurmountable without the support of others.

Thank you Björn

As always, please do feel free to get in touch if there is something you want to ask, discuss or suggest.

All the best for now,

The LungA School Janitors