Friday, 27 March: Opening of Páll Guðmundsson's big exhibition, to mark his 50th birthday, at Reykjavík Art Gallery. As well as over a hundred oil paintings and drawings, many of his stone sculptures and portraits carved in stone are on show - and a short documentary video about his work, showing how he picks stones (well, and rocks for his sculptures) in nature and works with them. Fascinating. Outside of Iceland, Pálli's probably best known for his stone marimba, which Sigur Rós were seen playing both in their documentary film Heima and in Oðin's Raven Magic, a project with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Steindór Andersen. Well, the instrument is on show here too. It's the first time I get to see it in close-up. I've never realised until now that each stone had a face etched on the surface. (BTW, these stones were not cut or trimmed in any way to produce a particular tone, they were found as they were.)
At the opening, there is a short performance (click on the image to view an MP4 clip. (1:18, 3.4MB) Sigur Rós on the big marimba, Steindór singing at the far end; on the small one on the left, Pálli himself and Hilmar.
Saturday, 28 March: Saturday afternoon demonstrations outside the Parliament are now over, but the Food Not Bombs stand around the corner is still serving free vegan food to everyone, under the motto "food for all - against capitalism and inequality."	Seen as part of the Design March week: a candle in the form of the Vatnajökull glacier, which is melting a meter every year at present - and expected to disappear in the next 200 years, along with many other glaciers in the world. When the candle's gone, you'll get the words "In Memoriam" at the bottom of the dish.
You will find better/clearer images of the candle on the designer, Arni Gretarsson's webpage. Also on show in the same space is an intrigueing model making kit made out of fishbones, called Something Fishy. (Actually, here's another link including some other strange products: a report from Tokyo Design Festival 2008.) So this is the end of our time here for now - we're flyng back to Berlin tomorrow afternoon. We'll be missing Iceland, but I'm sure we'll be back again this year. See you soon, Iceland!