The Sun Voyager in Reykjavik
Channel: Your Friend In Reykjavik
Date: 2021-02-10

Sólfarið or The Sun Voyager

This sculpture is made by artist Jon Gunnar Arnason, and it’s located down by the seafront here in Reykjavik.

The backstory of this artwork is that Reykjavik was celebrating its 200 year anniversary in 1986 and the city council decided to have a competition for a work of exterior art and the Sun Voyager was the winning design.

The artist described the sculpture as an Ode to the sun or a Dreamboat but as you can see, the Viking heritage of Iceland played a big part in the design, as it looks like a Viking longship.

It was also intended to convey a promise of undiscovered territory, a dream of hope, progress, and freedom.  So maybe it's not a surprise that originally this sculpture was supposed to be a little further down the coastline and facing west towards North America. 

I think the vision of the artist was to remind us of the voyage of the Icelandic Viking, Leifur Eiríksson or Leif the Lucky to find North America long before Christopher Columbus ever did.

But for some reason, the sculpture ended up here facing North on this very small peninsula which the artist himself jokingly called, Jonssnes or The peninsula of Jon. 

Sadly the artist, Jon died of Leukemia before the piece was finally fully constructed in 1990, so he never saw his masterpiece unveiled. 

Some people have suggested that Jon conceived the work at a time when he was preoccupied with death and they have argued that the Sun Voyager should be seen as a vessel that transports souls to the realm of the dead.

Similar to Greek and Roman Mythology, where the ferryman Charon, transport the newly deceased across the river Styx. 

Please click on the Like button if you like this video, as I will be doing more about Reykjavik & Iceland.

If you have any suggestions for places, art, food, or anything that you would like to see in a video about Iceland, please leave a comment below.

And... What do you think?
Is this a dreamboat, a Viking ship, or The Vessel of death?

#art in #Reykjavik #iceland

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