Modernization of Iceland
Industrial ruins and prisitine landscapes: An archaeological approach to the modernization of Iceland
Few periods in Icelandic history have been as romanticized by historical discource as the era of the “herring-adventure” in the early and mid 20th century. During that period several fishing stations developed along the coast, often in peripheral and previously unsettled areas where the proximity to the resources maximized the revenue. Today, many of the previously prosperous communities have been deserted, leaving a landscape dotted with residues of stranded industrial adventures and other uncanny installations of times just gone by.
These remains, as modern remains in general, have mostly been ignored archaeologically and have not generated interest within historical discourse or cultural heritage. Unlike the traditional romanticized ruin that so effortlessly acquires our appreciation, these modern installations stand in sharp contrast to the pristine landscapes they obtrude in, as well as our preferred perception of those – as landscapes beyond human impact. Despite literally materializing what is believed to have brought modernizm to Icelandic shores the uncanny remains of the deserted herring stations now contradict our general conception of “modernity” (cf. Latour, 1993) – as matter out of place and order.
This PhD-project proposes an archaeological exploration of the post-abandonment biographies of two such sites, fuelling a theoretical consideration on how and why processes of devaluation and marginalization of modern remains occur. At the same time the investigation suggests alternative perspectives, where the generative aspect of ruination is a central theme, underlining how modern remains, as antonyms of the modern, act as cultural critiques resisting conventional conceptions of heritage and waste. Moreover, how these forgotten installations resist simplified histories of linear progress and materially memorize alternative pasts of failure and rejection and thus literally manifest the significance of things and materiality in the construction of historical knowledge.