Roni Horn: Weather Reports You

by Roni Horn (Artist)

Available again, Roni Horn’s collective self-portrait via accounts of the weather “Everyone has a story about the weather. This may be the single thing each of us holds in common. And though the weather varies greatly from here to there, it is, ultimately, one weather that we share. Small talk everywhere has occasioned the popular distribution of the weather. Some say talking about the weather is talking about oneself. And with each passing day, the weather increasingly becomes ours, if not us. Weather Reports You is one beginning of a collective self-portrait,” writes Roni Horn, “a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social and moral energy of a person and a place”.

This book is a new edition of the original Weather Reports You of 2007, a gathering of oral reports on the weather made on location in Iceland, accompanied by snapshots taken at the time and place of each interview.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2007

Reviews

[Elizabeth Schlatter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Am trying to keep up my connections with Iceland, and this was a nice way to do that. The book is a collection of edited interviews with residents of Stykkisholmur and Helgafellssveit, Iceland, on the western coast, who were asked about their thoughts on weather. It's part of a larger project by American artist Roni Horn, who has had a long interest and connection with Iceland, including her museum/art project/community center called The Library of Water, in Stykkisholmur.

Horn commissioned two writers, including Oddny Eir Aevarsdottir, to interview residents about their connections with the weather, with questions like, "Can you recall any incident or period in your life when the weather played a major role? Does the weather have an effect on you? What kind of weather makes you feel good?" The resulting excerpts of interviews are pretty short and while somewhat repetitive are also oddly fascinating from both the global sense of everyone has a connection to the weather no matter where you're from, to a more personal level in terms of how people react or respond to changes in the weather. A number of the folks interviewed either worked on the water, mainly in fishing, or had relatives who worked on the water. Because of that, weather played a huge, often scary or tragic role in their lives. A number of people mentioned specific events when the weather changed dramatically and unpredictably (via wind or snow) and often this put the interviewees in danger.

Some great quotes include…

"The weather is like that. If you don't fight it, you become one with it and vanish."

"But Jesus, when I got confirmed the weather was crazy then and I had to put a bag over my head to keep my hairdo in place, and of course it blew away."

[from a guy talking with an older gentleman saying that all this good weather would surely mean that bad things were on the way] "I remember that because of how deep-rooted it is in the national character and among the older generations that Icelanders don't deserve, aren't destined to enjoy the weather."

"Kids complain today about having to walk two or three hundred meters to their school but we had six to ten kilometers to cross, over a mountain road."

"And I thought to myself, this is what the old men used to say in the old days, it was totally calm in the harbor and we'd been sailing for 15 minutes, then at the drop of a hat this huge southerly wind got up, and of course I should have turned back, but I was obstinate. I crawled across from sheer obstinacy and of course the women were scared shitless, and then I thought, yes, there's some truth in what the old men used to say."

"You see whole communities having mood swings according to the fluctuations in the water. People get broody and mope around, then they all cheer up again when the calm weather comes back. It's so deep-rooted, so universal, that you hardly notice it."

[during the summer, when there's light for almost 24 hours] "We didn't want to waste our time sleeping so we stayed up until morning, watching the sun slide down gently to the sea, kiss the surface and then go back up at the start of a new day. That experience is almost unique, seeing the sunset and sunrise at virtually the same moment. Then the next day the weather was the same, I went for a swim in the sea and somehow I merged into what I'd been watching the night before, the sun and the sea, and everything became one."

[outdoor pools are naturally heated year-round in Iceland] "If I'm in my stride I feel good in a snowstorm. For example, the best thing I know is going swimming in drifting snow and blizzards. Swimming like mad and then getting into the hot pot at the swimming pool. Feeling those extremes, the heat and the cold. Then maybe one day I wake up and there's that sort of weather and it's repellent. It's difficult to work out this interplay of mood and weather."

[David Tybor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A odd little charmer. Icelanders reflect on the weather, and how it has affected them (and vice versa?!?) Snapshots of snowstorms, spinouts, and shipwrecks, framed in global warming, mental toughness, mental health, and petulant millennials. If you've been to been to the West Fjords, Stykkishólmur, or the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, check this out!

[Erin Tuzuner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming tales of mundane weather affecting us all. Incidentally, reading this in inclement weather caused me to buy all kinds of soup. Thank you weather.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up in a museum in Stykkisholmur some years ago and have been dipping into it in the bathroom ever since. It's basically just a collection of reminiscences, thoughts and feelings by locals about the Icelandic climate, memorable storms, anecdotes, etc. Really gives a strong impression of the extent to which their lives are governed and coloured by the weather.