A Matter of Entropy is a series of photographs of dislocated houses found in vacant lots around the Reykjavík area. Icelandic law holds that all buildings older than a hundred years have protected status, and all those built in 1925 and earlier may only be altered with permission from the Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland. While these buildings must be preserved, the law allows that they be moved with the agency’s permission. Often, the buildings are moved in order to access valuable real estate in downtown Reykjavik. In the case of Laugavegur 74, developers sought maximize the usage of their lot, so they removed the original house to Grandi in 2007. They then built a new building with the same facade, only three times larger. The buildings that I have photographed have been transplanted from their original homes and brought to vacant industrial lots. They sit in these lots for years, sometimes moving to other lots as the original place of exile itself get developed, gradually decaying as they succumb to entropy. Some seem looked after, while others have had vandals smash windows and doors, and spray graffiti on the walls. In one case a house has been literally cut in half, apparently to make it easier to transport. I am left to question, what is actually being preserved here? Laugavegur 74 decayed so badly that it was demolished last autumn. Until recently, its replica housed a tourist shop that sold memorabilia of Iceland. I cannot imagine a more sardonic turn of fate.
The show is up until June 23rd 2019