$40.00 U.S. (trade discount)
No e-book has been authorized.
Hardcover
96 pages with 47 color photographs by the author
11.0″ x 9.0″ landscape/horizontal
ISBN 978–1–938086–52–6
Published June 2024
Distributed by Casemate/IPM
www.casemateipm.com
No e-book has been authorized. Published in association with the Center for the Study of Place.
Events and Exhibitions
February 2, 2025 from 4-5 pm
Visit Iceland with Photographers Nancy Libson and David Freese,
Main Point Books, Wayne, PA
Monday, October 28, 2024 at 6 pm
Book talk
Peaple’s Book, Takoma Park, MD
September 12, 2024 from 7-8:30 pm
Book launch
Beyond Art, Washington, DC
by Nancy Libson
Afterword by Kristín Helga Gunnarsdótt
An intimate and evocative photographic portrayal of children and childhood in rural Iceland.
Iceland is known worldwide for its stunning scenery and majestic wild landscapes. When photographer Nancy Libson first visited Iceland for a hiking trip some twenty years ago, she immediately fell in love with the country and its dramatic landscape. She vowed to return again, camera in hand. Beginning in 2015, Libson did just that, revisiting Iceland for four additional summers to photograph the land and its people.
When Libson began her project, she chose to get to know Iceland’s people and natural wonders in the small towns and villages, especially in rural areas. As she experienced this remote and beautiful land, she soon noticed the unique qualities of growing up in Iceland and her emphasis shifted from people of all ages to children at home and at play. Libson noticed that Icelandic children are granted an unusual level of freedom while living securely in close-knit families and supportive communities. She was further inspired to capture Iceland’s remoteness and beauty and its impact on the children who live there.
As portrayed in Children in Iceland, Libson’s photographs provide an intimate, thought-provoking, and playful view of the lives of the children surrounded by Iceland’s natural landscape. By photographing Iceland’s children, Libson began to better understand not only the children, but through them the culture and spirit of growing up in this remarkable country. Kristín Helga Gunnarsdóttir, the well-known Icelandic children’s author, concludes the book with her heartfelt afterword, sharing her enthusiasm for the freedom that Icelandic children feel from living with and close to nature.
About
About the Author
Nancy Libson has been taking photographs of people and places with a special interest in rural communities for decades. Her solo exhibitions include “Small Towns and Villages of Rural Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and Canada” at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, “Maine Villages” at the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison, and “Summertime Iceland: Light as a Metaphor at the House of Sweden,” which was sponsored by the Embassy of Iceland in Washington, D.C., and selected group exhibits include the Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle and the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland. Her photographs were included in the PhotoIreland Festival in Dublin sponsored by Cow House Studios, and her photographs of children are in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress. In 2020 and 2021, she received two individual grants from the (Washington) DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
About the Contributor
Kristín Helga Gunnarsdóttir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1963 and was raised there. She studied Spanish at the Universities of Iceland and Barcelona and received her B.A. in Spanish and journalism from the University of Utah. A writer, columnist, and environmental activist, she is best known for her series of children’s books on the character Fíasól. She is a three-time winner of the Icelandic Women’s Literature Award and the Reykjavik City Children’s Book Award and resides in Reykjavik.
Slide Show
Praise
“I love Children in Iceland! It rings so true to what I saw when I was there: the feeling of the world in which the kids grow up there, surrounded by such beautiful nature, a bit of wildness but also very enfolded into family. Nancy Libson’s book is a triumph!”
—Kate Trammell, Professor Emerita of Dance, James Madison University
“If there is such a thing as a carefree, idyllic childhood, it is to be found in the rural countryside of Iceland. We see the joy on the children’s faces as they play without a care in the world, where the family is close knit, fathers take their place in the sun, and the environment is the watchful neighbor in an Icelandic tale that is so wonderfully told in the loving, revealing photographs of Nancy Libson.”
—David Freese, photographer and author of Iceland Wintertide, winner of the 2022 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Book on Europe, and the award-winning Trilogy of North American Waters: West Coast, East Coast, and Mississippi River
“Nancy Libson’s remarkable photographs show the everyday moments of children and families whose lives are uniquely situated within the spare and otherworldly Icelandic landscape. Children in Iceland is unlike any other book about this wonderful country.”
—Melissa Ann Pinney, photographer and author of Girl Ascending and In Their Own Light: Photographs from Chicago Public Schools
“Nancy Libson’s Children in Iceland is a very lovely book, one that makes me yearn to be back in Iceland. I know that light, those environs, those people—all precious reminders of my experiences there.”
—Paula Chamlee, photographer and author of Iceland: A Personal View, Volume 1
My Place
One of my “special places” points to the north … and includes areas in New England where I’m from. I especially love Vermont in the winter and Maine in the summer. Maybe that’s because of my childhood memories of skiing in Vermont, gliding down the snowy slopes and heading back upslope again. My affinity for Maine is also tied to fond memories of the beautiful coastal villages where the rocky shores meet the sea and where community thrives. Maine is the place where, as a young student, I became a photographer. As Maine and Vermont became more touristed, I journeyed further north and discovered Iceland.
There’s also a special internal place that is an extension of me … which is walking. I have al-ways envisioned myself as one who walks in order to reflect and to see. In my urban home of Washington, D.C., I enjoy taking in the sights and sounds of the various neighborhoods, while being open and available to what might arise from within. Looking back, as a child, my bike riding was synonymous with walking, wind against my face, as if flying down the hills. I would takeoff and ride for hours after school, exploring the wooded country roads and neighborhoods of my hometown in Connecticut, already creating images in my mind, carefree and exhilarated.
As a documentary/art photographer who photographs communities, there’s something both energizing and spiritual about walking for miles, hours at a time. My body in rhythm when exploring new places or returning to places I’ve been where I see the familiar in a different light; creating possibilities for meeting people and photographing a community in their “place,” who share a part of themselves with me, my artistic process, and my camera as a tool for connecting.
Copyright © 2023 Nancy Libson. All rights reserved.