// RESEARCH PROJECTS

This dissertation examines the creative process through the lens of creative writing communities and asks what we learn about world-making and social change through this lens. Based on eleven months of fieldwork in Reykjavík, the study explores the intersection of migration, language politics, creative practice, and collaboration in Iceland's evolving cultural scene. Through participant observation and visual ethnography, the research investigates how collaborative art-making becomes both a site of cultural belonging and exclusion.

This research project consists of two elements. The first is the investigation into current conditions experienced by multilingual writers in Iceland and Denmark. This investigation includes desktop research and interviews with 10 practicing authors and educators in each country. Questions included current opportunities and challenges for writers in each country. Coupled with this research is the development and delivery of workshops that encourage multilingual writing. The findings will be published in a report to further inform development of education and training opportunities.

An Elsewhere Anthropologist explores the borderlands between fiction and ethnography, unearthing hidden truths from literature, folklore, and the wild edges of human experience. From author and student anthropologist Christopher Marcatili.

Iceland in Other Words is a collaborative publication combining anthropological fieldwork with creative storytelling. It's a hand-made, limited edition zine featuring 10 contributors of ethnographic fiction and multimodal storytelling. The collection explores themes of displacement, belonging, and cultural translation through fiction, poetry, and visual art and a short interactive story. Contributors include: V Vdovina, M Spinei, G Dunsmith, A V Kro, Regin Edvardsson, S Rees, C Marcatili, M Poilvez, AD Þórisson, O Hindley, C A Skahan. Made in Hafnar.Haus.

"Lost in Reykjavík" is a photographic documentation project capturing misplaced objects discovered throughout Reykjavík, Iceland during 2024 fieldwork. Objects range from single gloves and shoes found in melting snow to increasingly bizarre out-of-place items. The project employs anthropological principles of making the familiar strange, using these mundane yet peculiarly situated objects to invite viewers to consider questions about responsibility toward found objects, material culture, and how items become "lost" through displacement from useful social networks. The collection explores how lost objects create "tiny ruptures" in daily routines that spark curiosity and demand attention, revealing stories about human presence and absence.