Paintings and weird things on the walls

The first thing you notice when you arrive in Iceland’s cool (see what I did there?) capital is the amazing amount of street art and colour around its streets.

Sure, there are lots of colourful homes and fences - but it’s not just that. 

People get creative in Iceland. It seems to me that people love art and literally living among art, so that pictures are not just to be seen in museums, but can decorate the entire city! This thought inspires me a lot - I’ve been in awe during all my holiday in Reykjavik. Everywhere I turned, there was a great mural, graffiti, or even knitted artworks decorating trees! Like this:

Talking about decorating trees in a creative way…

Moreover, art is used as advertisement by little shops - and it’s so much better than those huge blueprints we have here! Here’s an example - this mural advertises a company that fixes computers:

The artistic installation are a world apart. There are huge artworks made of glass or some kind of sequin that move with every gust of wind and sparkle like fairy powder on top of buildings:

And then there are huge masterpieces that remind you of modern time science fiction:

My thought when I came back home was: what if we did the same in our grey and boring cities? Suddenly a realization came to me: here, it would be impossible. Even if the city council gave its permission (and I don’t think they would, honestly, because for some reason they like their concrete), people would run around with spray cans and write stupid slogans all over the murals. Or they would add inappropriate male apparatus to pretty much anything (yeah..you know what I’m talking about). This doesn’t seem to happen in Iceland - or at least, I haven’t seen one mural ruined by mindless “sprayers”. I’ve been under the impression that most people respect stuff in Iceland. Want to set long chairs on Laugavegur for people to sit? Sure, no problem.

In general, Icelandic people proved to be very respectful towards things and people alike:  when I was lost alone in Reykjavik I had at least 7 people anxious to help me - and that isn’t something that  happened a lot during my travels in other Countries!  

People just seem genuinely happy about the murals, and the city council actually encourages this kind of things - as you can read here.

Walking the streets of Reykjavik is like being in one of those cool kids’ museums they have in Germany, where kids can look at art but also experiment and draw and live their creative impulse. I felt like I was perfectly allowed to take a pencil and draw pretty stuff wherever I wanted (I don’t know ifthis is actually legal, so don’t do it). Honestly, I just wanted to run through the colourful streets like I was 6.

Talking about young artists: I spent a night in Leynibúðin’s bar on Laugavegur. i understand it is some sort of young designers collective, active in the fashion area. Besides the brilliant DJ set they had, I had the chance to show my little art notebook to people there. They showed me their work, too, and we talked about street art for about 3 hours. It’s something that had never happened to me. 

So if you are an art enthusiast like me, Iceland is definitely the place to be. And don’t forget to visit the local bars and collectives of young designers and artists - there you can see art at work and meet interesting people who get excited hearing your latin-sounding name! 

Maybe I have a romantic and unrealistic idea of Iceland. Unfortunately I’m not naive enough to believe that there is a place where everyone is respectful and kind. But coming from a Country (Switzerland) where people is horribly rude to each other, my holidays in Reykjavik felt like a huge breath of fresh air!