Interviews med Johann Sigmarsson

At age 5 I got meningitis and got disabled on the right side of the body. I was lot in hospitals because of that at my early years as child. I had to exercise from my right side to the left side and I had speech problem. I couldn’t talk at all. When I was working out of the worst difficulties of my sickness my dad brought lot of empty wine bottles and colours from his work every week for my to paint on them. He was owner of a big club in Reykjavík. My parents took me sometimes to their work when they didn’t have a babysitter and there I watched some various affects of life, like people beating each other up, some horror, something children shouldn’t see. There was as well lot of music bands playing each weekend and that had good influence on me. I had a lot of freedom in my childhood because of my parents where working every night and sleeping in the daytime, so it was almost no adult to care. I painted a lot in childhood and that has without doubt create what I am today. I work as creator and it just always has been like that. It was difficult to be youngster because of my sickness and then my father got depressed. He got bankrupt and lost everything. He tried to commit suicide for 13 times before it succeeded. My family was splitting apart. I tried to get various jobs, but because of my sickness no one would hired me. I think they was afraid of the responsibility. I was homeless at the time and lived in a old car. I brushed my teeth on bars. The only thing I had was a little drawing block and some pencils. I started to draw people for liquors. When I was in technical drawings, metalwork and mechanical engineering and later in the Reykjavik School of Visual Art I had different little jobs with my friend related to film industry, mostly jobs without salaries and I painted in laundry room at my brother from 1988. That was my beginning of the development of a carrier with harking. I met some good people on my way and I started in production of my first feature film which I wrote with in 1991. I had experiment with the arts. I would say it would be very important to develop what you’re working on and don’t give up though you are imagine you got all the problems of the world on your shoulders. If the Arts wants you it will come and you just follow where ever it goes.

I was not going to become designer. Seven years ago I started with a new girlfriend from Sweden living in the countryside of Iceland. I was living in Berlin and she was going to move to me, but she had two dogs. One of them was heartsick and couldn’t fly. I moved to Iceland and left most of my personal effects behind. When I came there most of her personal effects was in boxes and she just had two old mattresses on the floor. We didn’t have so much money. Then I got idea to create bed and that’s how it started. One month later I had a order to make another one. Then I started to experiment with what I was gifted to create, design and build, so I created armchair and a desk. I worked many creative jobs through the years as film set dresser, writings, directing, producing, drawings, paintings and sculptures as well as renovating houses. It was always little money or no money at all in my projects and because of that I had to do lot myself, so carpenter and designer came as well. I obviously got those creative elements in my head.

First I think of the object and subject I am going to do and what for. Then I read about it, schedule and sketch it up. Then I create the first prototype and look at it. I melt it in my head for a while if it need some changes. I work with computer and always build my prototypes and create the art pieces myself. Sometimes I have assistant and sometimes someone to criticise. To have someone to criticise is good if its right and helpful analyse on the subject.

I feel good when I create arts and its very educating and sophisticated for the brain. You call out the seven senses.

If you think about it. Design is in almost every object around you. The World and its Universe is a big design and almost everything in it too. My background in filmmaking and creative various arts was developing the designer in me. Of course for years I’ve been reading books, articles, watch documentaries, see designed objects and think about it, but nothing compares if you design object yourself and get a good feedback. I had develop the designer in me for decades. I remember I was always creating some design by taking old different objects and puzzle them together because I didn’t have afford a new one. That trains your brain. I have moved over 30 times in my life and very often I have just take my necessary stuff with me and left my other stuff behind or give it away because it was so much effort to take it with me. If you look at the negative in positive way. It’s a kind of freedom.

I have The Equator Memorial Project which is a group of international artists who are creating art pieces and functional objects by recycling historical materials of ruins from world heritage sites. It will take years to establish it and build it up. The mission is to hold a series of exhibitions in galleries or museums worldwide in support of a sustainable environment, justice, freedom and peace. At each exhibition approximately 50 - 60 art pieces will be presented created by selection of international artists. A part of the income for each sold or rented piece will be allocated to a charity fund for humanitarian and community projects. Confirmed materials: the Reykjavík Harbour, the Hamburg Port, the Berlin Wall, Genbaku Dome in Hiroshima (A bomb), two broken windows from office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in the Norwegian government's headquarters in Central Oslo after it was damaged from terrorist attack by Anders Behring Breivik and from Graveyard of Lenin monuments and Stalin statues. Plans have been drawn up to obtain materials from; the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, which has been preserved untouched since almost all its inhabitants were massacred on June 10, 1944, the Czech village of Lidice, 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, former Soviet Union - GULAG, Colosseum, ruins of the Buddhas of Bamiyan which was destroyed in Afghanistan by Taliban in 2001 to demolish holy icons and disrespect ideologic of the religion, the Basque town of Guernica, Liverpool and the slave trade and from the time of the Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara, when he was in Lithuania helping people and children from the tragedy of the World War II.The next exhibition is scheduled to be at Headquarters UNESCO in Paris for support of sustainable environment, justice, freedom and peace, opening at 17th of November 2018 in the honour of the 21st anniversary of The International Day of Peace.

Design! Design! Design! Don’t be disappointed if you make a mistake. Learn from it.

I once watched a documentary about Andrei Tarkovsky and when he was asked why he became a filmmaker, He answered; “I didn’t pick filmmaking, filmmaking picked me”. I guess the same goes over successful designers, artists, architects etc. You don’t pick your profession, the profession picks you. It means it will come if you’re that profession.

Oh I have so many problems. It starts from the early morning when I open my eyes and wake up. Then I have to dissolve problems so they don’t be problems any longer and can actually work. I work on abovementioned; The Equator Memorial Project, which I created. That’s lot of fun, lot of effort and lot of work. I run errands for it like a slave, but sometimes it takes me on a trip and educate me as well as introduce my for new interesting people and places. 2016 I was looking for art studio for the project in Vilnius, but I didn’t find it. I found my wifey, some history, then I found a old small company which I bought, changed it name to UAB / STUDIJA VILNIUS and then now I was renting a premises for studio. The containers are at the custom. Soon I will be creating for it. I like it otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.

I am not designing anything like it yet, but I have some drawings and prototypes and will do it in the near future. I’ve been working on establishing the project and that has taken all my time. I had the first History- and Art exhibition “When The Atomic Bomb Exploded” Harpa, Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavík exhibited a collection of art pieces from The Equator Memorial Project / International itinerant artists project. The exhibition opened 15th of December 2016, when it was formally 60 years from the beginning of the diplomatic relations between Iceland and Japan. The first exhibition is achieved partly in collaboration with the Embassy of Japan and was opened by President of Iceland, Mr. Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Ambassador of Japan, Mr. Yasuhiko Kitagawa. I don’t go so much after any trends.

If I have a prototype which just been made. Then I criticise it. What’s it for? Is it comfortable? Is it looking nice? What changes can I possibly make if there’s any? Then I give it some time and show it to others.

When I have give it some time and I an satisfied with what I have been thinking about it and doing. It’s done. I don’t know when the product or project has become a success, otherwise I would be a millionaire, but I am not. I am an artist, not much of a businessman. Somebody else than me have to judge my products and somebody else have to sell it. I need company of business which take care of that.

It haven’t come out yet.

Its so many. We have had very good designers, architects and artists through centuries, but it’s sad as well in history that they are demolishing some of those beautiful works. They are destroying whole cities by war like what’s happening in Syria. Who gives some guys who are in power maybe for 10 or 20 years to destroy over 5000 years old cities and kill innocent people or force them to leave their homes? And all this they do because of religions, or power and money. It’s insanity. You don’t go into war if you wish for peace. You don’t die for piece. You live with piece. War is not necessary today. It’s a lot of money which goes into war business, public money. It’s a bad philosophy and act of destructions. Governments should hire people for growing trees for 4 years, instead of making innocent people go to the army and changing them into killing machine, fighting innocent people on the opposite side, who they call their enemies. It’s not right. If people don’t belong together they can walk from each other. It’s always fake cause to go into war. We don’t have to defend tradition like that. All those wars is horrifying history. We are guests on the earth and we should share our good significant knowledge and our great thought for the life. I was with my wife in Benidorm over the New Year visiting her mother. It was snowing in Madrid and lot of cars got stuck in the snow. They was sending the army out to help people from it. That was a good cause. Of course I would like to talk to Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry or get on a bender with Picasso, or drink absinthe with Van Gogh and scream with Edvard Munch.

I like all cities I’ve been too. Some are similar. Some different. They have contrasting culture and individual people. Music has always been very important for my creativity. I am in Vilnius now, but I am from Reykjavík. Now I’m working on getting 2 containers from Iceland to Lithuania. It is stuck in the custom in Klaipeda. We’re dissolving that problem. It contains some of the historical material which I’ve been collecting for the Equator Memorial Project and my working equipments for our new art studio in Vilnius. I will be working there creating art pieces and functional objects until September this year. Then I will be working in a studio in Berlin until beginning of November. The art pieces will be exhibited at UNESCO.

I ‘m not forcing any ideas to me. It all comes from the subconscious of my brain and from the outside environment I am thinking about. I work alone, but sometimes with assistants on my art pieces, other artists and professionals I hire as freelances on my projects. I think it’s easy to work with me, but some people say it can sometimes be overwhelming because I am to pushy to get what I wish for and then I always want more, but that is their opinion and not my problem. I am not a businessman and have no interest in it. Often I have to seek business for my work, but I hate it and all the bureaucracy behind it. Bureaucracy is only for one thing. It’s for creating more bureaucracy for nothing. If we’re some professionals working together which I has been hiring for some project. I always give them full authority to create their input. It’s in the project what it is about. We can have discussions about it and I would say that’s very important for cooperations. I am always open for cooperations. It’s about sharing and to pass on.

I work my profession with all my heart and its up to the society if people accept it or not. That’s my feelings.The task I am establishing now; The Equator Memorial Project which is about recycling historical materials and create art pieces and functional objects to connect history, environment, design and art together for support of a sustainable environment, justice, freedom and peace. The concept is humanitarian and its open for everyone.

It’s honour.

When I were four years old, nearly five I got meningitis. When discovered the doctors told my mother I would die that night. It was 1974 at the Christmas time. I got disabled from right side of my body and lost speech. Next years went into building my self up from the sickness, so I was much from school in my childhood. I had to exercise from being right handed to my left and to learn to walk again. I grew up with parents who were running a big discotheque in Reykjavík. They builded the house for the club. My father sometimes brought my empty wine bottles and house painting from their work. I colored the bottles. It was always lot of different people around in my childhood, always lot of things happening both in our house, discotheque or in the neighborhood were I grew up. I was animal fan. I raised pigeons, fishes, birds, mouses and rabbits. I was building the animals sheds myself. When I was nineteen my father committed a suicide. He had tried it for thirteen times before it happened. He had gone bankrupt and my mother left him for another man 3 years before. My family was splitting up. Nearly no one would hire me for a paid position because of my disability. That’s why I had to learn to work my own different jobs. Creation was always on my mind. That was making me independent because no one wanted to hire me. Independency is very important for creativity.

Education: 1985 – 1986 – The Reykjavík Technical College – Metalwork and mechanical engineering. 1986 – 1987 – The Reykjavík Technical College – Technical Drawing. 1988 – 1990 – The Reykjavik School of Visual Art – Paintings.

I always been productive in everything, so for instinct I nearly worked all positions in filmmaking for less, or no money at all. To create art, set dressing, art directing, house paintings, to fix old different designs together and so on and let it work. It’s maybe a new prototype? It’s all training you to see new designs. It’s kind of experimental to put things together for finding out new good design. It will also practice your eyes for it. I once had girlfriend from Sweden, but she lived in the Icelandic countryside. She was going to move to me in Berlin, but she had two dogs and one of them was heart sick and could’t fly, so I had to move back to Iceland, to stay closer to her. Everything in her shed was in boxes and we didn’t have a bed. I went to the store and bought some material for building shelfs, but what we actually needed was a bed, so I builded a bed. When our friend came to visit I showed him the bed. He ordered one for his wife. That was the idea.

I didn't choose to become a designer. Design picked me up and I was, one can say forced to create a bed on my own for a girlfriend. I had unconsciously created some design before by taking some old stuff and putting it together so it was functioning alright. I never thought of it to be a designer.

I wish to create and design what pop up to my thoughts. If I need it, someone else can need it as well. Is it beautiful? Is it comfortable? Is it practical? What is it, what’s the use for it? What's the story about it?

To speak about the truth, I'm no legend, but you have to have interest to create a design and go for it. It doesn't matter if you do lot of mistakes. Don't take it seriously, just learn from it. Everybody makes mistakes. Be with open mind and be easy on it. If it doesn't work out what you're doing, just put it to a shelf and stop thinking about it for a wile until it comes bursting out. If you want it don’t let anybody tell you to forget it. It doesn’t matter if get denies from professionals, companies, institutions, financers or funds. It’s alright don’t take it seriously. You just need one yes. In my life time I have got thousands of refusals. Don’t take it personally and don’t let it put you down. It’s just how some people act. Let it build you up. If you get one yes out of lot of denies. Stick to it. That can be your go for it.

Great designer just have to give all their efforts and creativity

to the project they’re doing. The projects don't have to be complicated and often the best solutions come in simplicity. For example we can talk about the "I Love NY" advertising campaign. The logo was designed by graphic designerMilton Glaserin 1976 in the back of a taxi and was drawn with red crayon on scrap paper. It is everywhere today in different cities at variance objects. It was fast, easy, simple and had amazing impact around the globe for decades.

Creative thinking is the main driver of innovation, with the design profession playing a major role in shaping ideas towards value-added solutions. Good design is primarily about better functionality for the user, which can include the development of new products, services, processes or communication channels. The idea that design plays an important role in the process of innovation has been recognized among well-known technical and economic experts for some time. Great design is when the object function well, shape of it is magnified, enjoyable and easy. The projects must reflect quality and be effective, include creative thinking, clever solutions, high-quality implementation, an emphasis on aesthetics and professionalism in working methods. The projects are also considered to be user-friendly, innovative and have a positive impact on quality of life, value creation and sustainability. Great design will always stay classic.

Investing in professional design shows that your business values professionalism and sends a powerful message to potential clients or customers. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and using a professional designer helps you make it as effective as possible.Good design makes a strong first impression. Good design is aboutusing colors, shapes, textures, space, forms, images, and content in a harmonious, balanced way. Good design starts with a strong brand. Decoration is a big part of people, thou it’s your company, your house, your car, in fashion, in music, in films, in art or your style. Design is everywhere.

I’m with nearly open minded for everything, but though I would never do anything concerning war business or that industry. I would never work for the army.

I really don’t know? The project comes if it will pick me up.

I just go after the heart if I need something and nothing is around. I try to create a design. I am not working as a designer for others, but of course I would consider that with open mind if somebody would like to hire me for designing.

It’s so many good and broad aspects of designers for everything in this material world. Some of the designs are classic, some of it turns up new methods in way of living which is very good. I like good designers.

Oh it’s huge of favorites and good designs around. It can be lot of different things why I like them. What I like the most today are designers methods about the green environment, as well as them who are recycling and using old materials and turning it into new designs. It can be thousand designers, but only one is excellent.

I like the chair I was finishing in February ’25 The Old Man and the Sea. I like the shape of it, it look good and its comfortable. I like the story behind why I were creating it. Its design with storytelling, the recycled wood, the sailors, fishes, ships and the life at the harbor for over 100 years. It also reminded me on the book by Hemingway.

I did nothing. I just had rough path completely without anything, but I had idea, wanted to create and that was what I did. It is old saying in Icelandic; Necessity teaches a naked woman to spin.

For me? I am Artist, Designer, Filmmaker, Carpenter and many other things, good and bad. I am always learning some new way of living.

Design is one of those things people are having a discussion, arguing or debating about. It’s important.

I got the idea myself because Reykjavik city was taken the old harbor and wanted to throw it away, saying that in the news. That harbor have served our income. The planks from the harbor was looking horrible. I took plank from it and dried it. I planed one third of and there was this beautiful wood. I soon discovered that much of the material was perfect for what I had in mind, i.e. stylish handmade furniture, sculptures and artwork. Aside from being environmentally friendly, this recycling was also a kind of resurrection.

The abovementioned wood from the harbor took me on a journey for making designer out of me.

I did lot of mistakes and got over it, or I was finding a solution to make it better.

They should send it at professional events and get distribution for it.

Only the fish knows. Marked as fish in the sand.

I just design for me, but if somebody else can use it it’s good. If it’s a chair that’s something somebody else can use.

I really don’t know. I haven’t research or analyze it.

In many ways design can help to create better societies and cities from kindergarten, schools, Restaurants, Hotels, roads, to city lines, public parks and squares...

I am working on a project called THE EXHIBITION CLUB- Organization. The dream is to be with Exhibition Galleries in few capitals in Europe, titled under the branch of THE EXHIBITION CLUB, presenting the same artists. It is planned to seek collaboration with a software company to build an art sales app that introduces the artists, the artworks, their size and price. It will be possible to pay for the artworks through payment gateways. There will also be more artworks on display in the app from the artists in question and their larger CVs and other information that is worth knowing.

The bed I designed and builded for my x girlfriend, don’t ask me why?

I would like to see more of designers methods about the green environment, as well as them who are recycling and using old materials and turning it into new designs.

Hopefully at the abovementioned field.

It depends on what time I have to do it, otherwise you can be with the same project for a long time.

It depends on the project.

Take it easy at the beginning and think it up from different sides. Its few ways to do it.

Design sets the trends, but it also depends on the story behind it.

I first make drawings or photo, then I build a prototype and if its good I measure it out.

Old computer software. Then I use wood at the beginning and simple working tools.

It depends on what you’re designing. In almost everything I’m used to break the rules.

They can ask for anything which pop-up in their mind. I’ll try to answer if I can.

Wow, that’s brilliant.

I don’t know? I haven’t had a design partner yet. I believe in co-design, though it has to be on diplomatic scope.

I think I was learning it slowly from myself because of my different experiences in my rough private, social and independent working life such as; renovating and painting houses, filmmaker, artist and taking different jobs in my past.

I used to have DVD’s with collections of design and I was reading some books about this main designers which did a lot for this field.

I always start at zero.

Arne Jacobsen, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius… aka…Bauhaus, Jesus Christ, God and many others?

I always start at zero.

It depends on the mood.

Few days before I got to Como Lake at last time. I got totally drunk in Berlin with my friends. I felt down and had a big wound on my forehead. Before I got to the ceremony at A. Design Awards. I walked into some make-up Artist shop at the main street and asked the woman working there to give-me a make-up face lift to my wound like in a Rock Star style, so I could go to the Awards. It seemingly worked out. Nobody noticed.

When I finish a prototype and is pretty gratified with it.

I always start at zero.

Were should I start?

When I was a child my dad always came with empty wine bottles for me to paint on. I started from there. I was never going to be a designer. I was not thinking of it. Of course I were looking and thinking of the beauty of design in items, but I was thinking of it differently than today. I was thinking of its function or I was thinking how can I use it for my Art. I am filmmaker and artist. I got involved into filmmaking, but I was thinking of art. Today it's no art in filmmaking. It's just some bureaucracy trying to be entertainment for the market dominated by the business people. It's highly overrated, so I changed my life back to art.

The Equator Memorial Project is a group of international artists who are creating art pieces and functional objects by recycling materials from world historical monuments. The target is to held series of exhibitions on the heritage site locally, in galleries or museums worldwide. The exhibitions will comprise a few, numbered items of functional objects and art works related to the heritage sites. The intention is that the pieces will be signed by the artists and sold at auction in the end of every exhibition. A part of the income for each sold piece will be allocated to charity fund for supporting community projects. Accompanying every item will be a short informational text on the history of the material.

Recycled Materials:

The Reykjavík Harbor, The Berlin Wall, The Hamburg Port and Hiroshima.

That's design in everything on earth, so design is very important.

Something that comes out of my subconscious and is unexpected. I'm a bit of surrealistic. I believe in dreams and more important I believe in daydreams. I like random.

I am thinking about story in design and somehow LA CHOCOLATERIE MENIER is a beautiful architecture which is in a river. The story is the Menier Chocolate company was a chocolate manufacturing business founded in 1816 as a pharmaceutical manufacturer in France, at a time when chocolate was used as a medicinal product and was only one part of the overall business.

Shoes for myself in 1989. I am disabled on the right side of my body after meningitis in childhood. So I sketched up shoes which specially made for me by shoemaker.

Old material which can be recycled into new items.

When I sleep.

How is its function? Is it comfortable? And beauty?

Its great when I forget myself.

Of course it's exciting.

Its beauty and its function.

Its beauty and its function. Is it comfortable?

They should think more about the environment.

It is great future.

Last summer at Reykjavík City Hall in cooperation with UNESCO. We want to held our next exhibition in Hamburg.

From life, experience and films. The story behind it.

I'm first of all creating art. I do everything with my left hand. To create!

In Iceland, but in May 2012, I was watching a report on the evening news about the Association of Icelandic Ports and its intention to refurbish the Reykjavík Harbor. Apparently, much of the jetty was to be removed and discarded. It occurred to me then that the wood might be recycled and used to make furniture. And this was the beginning of a brand new idea.

In autumn, I obtained permission to take the wood being thrown away by the Reykjavík Harbor. We then began to dry and plane it in preparation for the project. I soon discovered that much of the material was perfect for what I had in mind, i.e. stylish handmade furniture. Aside from being environmentally friendly, this recycling was also a kind of resurrection. Way back in 1903, the very same material was used to construct a dock for the herring fleet, which later became a part of the Reykjavik Harbor that was constructed between 1913 and 1917. Closer examination revealed that the some of the wood originally came from a German schooner that sank off the south coast of Iceland in 1890. The vessel was brought to Reykjavik and disassembled for scrap. Fascinatingly, research indicated that that the trees may have been more than 200 years old when they were first used for shipbuilding.

The recycled wood from the Harbor gives the furniture a characteristic look and holds part of Reykjavík’s history at the same time.

I am freelance and work for myself, but of course I have to deal with other people and companies. Usually it's a good cooperation, but everything have to be fair and honest.

Give them as much freedom as possible.

Usually I don't think so much about it. I let it come into my mind easy and sketch it down, then I start to do the prototype and from there I can change it.

Some trees.

When I wake up I am usually curious about the day, who I'm going to meet and what I'm going to do?

It's alright to do mistakes. You can learn from it.

I don't consider myself as designer. I am artist.

No golden rules.

I don't know.

I use photoshop, indesign and freehand. Of course there is a inspirations from other artists, designers and architects in the history. I analyze myself for what I want to do.

I don't think so much of the time. You can always develope yourself later on.

It depends on what you're doing. You can always do another prototypes of the same item.

I'm not a designer.

To do some mistakes and get over it.

From private collectors to companies and institutions, but I don't have such a long experience in clients, because. It is only three years since I designed and built my first bed. I didn't know I could do it, so it was very surprising situation.

I enjoy when my subconscious is working and I create art piece.

Exhibitions worldwide, mainly with the Equator Memorial Project.

I have been developing and creating pieces myself, but now we're getting a international team together concerning the current project.

I have lot of pieces going on which I am preparing.

Through www.40074km.is - The Equator Memorial Project, or the competition.

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