Birgitta Björg Guðmarsdóttir is a poet and musician, from Reykjavík, Iceland. She is a founding member of the alternative punk band Ólafur Kram, winners of Músíktilraunir 2021. Her main instrument is the Trumpet, but she has sung in various projects, most notably with the Hamrahlíð choir. Birgitta focuses equally on the written/spoken word and sound. She writes poetry and prose, has published one novel (Skotheld, 2018). Her prose focuses on the surreal experience of living as a body, and many of her works put the female experience in the foreground. In her poetry and lyrics, she explores Icelandic day-to-day life and its strangeness. This is her first work as an active composer.

Glýpt

5 female performers

Glýpt aims to honor the female body in the many forms it comes, women‘s work through the ages and the Icelandic roots of the artist. The title of the work is three-fold in meaning. Glýpt is a word that refers to absorbency – the earth we grow up in can be absorbent, so is the skin – it draws in water, sun and vitamins – it is because both the earth and the body is absorbent that we can live. And lastly it is ourselves who are absorbent –we are constantly absorbing knowledge and wisdom from our environments.

The soundscape of the work is two-fold. Firstly the constant drip-drop of the water that rises and falls with the woolen clothes. Secondly the collective silence, created within the focus of both the participants and the audience. In this silence there can be found many things – thoughts, history and knowledge that perhaps some of us have lost or forgotten.