With Love, Iceland

01/08/2025

Coastal plants and algae have been used since Settlement time. Join us for a walk to learn about identification and local knowledge on how to sustainably forage them for food. The walking tour will end with herbal tea and a tasting by a campfire. Free for all curious minds!

04/11/2024

Did you know that the first ever seaweed farm in Iceland was established in the Westfjords? Fine Foods Íslandica’s mission is to enable more rural communities to sustainably grow seaweed. Seaweed is versatile as a material, and can truely drive sustainable transformations when cultivated or harvested in well-considered and non-destructive methods. This will in turn increase the environmental and social resilience against climate change and depopulation. Follow their journey, lend a hand .is

Their project is supported by The Horizon Europe Project Atlantic-Arctic Agora, to support the EU Commission Mission on “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” and Uppbýginggasjóður Vestfjarða 2022-2024.

22/04/2024

I am very excited to have a chance to collaborate with Hafdís Sturlaugsdóttir again on a project. Last year, combining Hafdís´ long-term local ecological knowledge and our research on best seaweed farming practices, we set down a pilot seaweed sea farm along the coast owned by her and her family.

In this new project, made possible through the support of Icelandic Lamb, we will combine the seaweed that we grow, with the high quality sheep meat farmed and processed in-house in small batches by Húsavíkurbúið (Hafdís' certified meat production house) to create a new, locally produced Icelandic delicacy.

As local as one can get!

Hafdís is obsessed with her sheep, to a point where she put GPS tracking devices to study what they eat, where they sleep and their social behaviours. You can read about Hafdís and her sheep farming and product philosophy in our interview on https://www.withloveiceland.com/hafds

Image of Hafdís and Matthías by Purple Hat Haukur Sigurðsson

23/12/2023

Glittský (polar stratospheric clouds) hovered for three days. This rare iridescence comes from light refracted from ice crystals that congregate in the stratosphere in extreme low temperatures. A very nice accompaniment to the midnight rainbows that glaze the winter darkness.

22/12/2022

(English below) Jólalestur: Tíu manneskjur, tíu sögur, tíu heimar á hjara veraldar, Vestfjörðum Íslands. Hvernig lítur lífið út í gegnum glugga Vestfjarða?

Ten people, ten stories, ten worlds on the edge of Earth, the Westfjords of Iceland. What does life look like through the window of the Westfjords?

https://www.withloveiceland.com/milk-carton-stories

Mjólkurfernusögur is the fruit of a cultural identity research by With Love, Iceland’s multi-disciplinary team, Arndís Dögg Jónsdóttir (folklore and information science) and Svava Þorsteinsdóttir (visual research, product design and illustration).

During the summer of 2022, the duo traveled around the Westfjords and interviewed local residents about life in the countryside. This collection of stories explore the deeper layers of social life and culture in the Westfjords.

Interviews and writting: Arndís Dögg Jónsdóttir & Svava Þorsteinsdóttir
Illustrations: Svava Þorsteinsdóttir
Creative director, web layout and editor: Jamie Lee
Qualitative research supervisor: Jón Jónsson

This project is made possible by Nýsköpunarsjóður námsmanna, a student innovation fund.

Tíu manneskjur, tíu sögur, tíu heimar á hjara veraldar, Vestfjörðum Íslands. Hvernig lítur lífið út í gegnum glugga Vestfjarða? Mjólkurfernusögur is a series of stories recorded from varies corners of the Westfjords, capturing sparkles in daily life.

28/11/2022

“mannleg náttúra • human nature” is a multi-sensory exhibition that tells six stories of daily lives in nature in the Westfjords region, Iceland: the seasons of sheep farming, a grandmother picking mushrooms and tending to a geothermal garden to make meals for her family, baking traditional cakes from the ruby red rhubarbs growing wild in the most remote fjord, harvesting seaweed by hand to make fertilisers, creating conversations with water and colour movements and an artist’s travels in the least visited landscapes by bicycling. A series of free events and classes connected to these themes were hosted to give visitors a chance to meet and take a walk in these Westfjordians’ shoes. The exhibition and events have ended, but stories live on on our website: withloveiceland.com

06/09/2022

This project is made possible with the support from Uppbýggingasjóður Vestfjarða.

03/09/2022

Putting into use what I learned from the flora & herb class with — lunch in the sun with some túnsúra (Rumex acetosa) freshly plucked from our picnic spot in the tundra. These tangy little leaves brighten the plokkfiskur (Icelandic fish stew) made from leftover haddock from last night’s dinner.

15/08/2022

Takk fyrir síðast! Það var skemmtileg til að læra um sveppi hjá Eiríki. Thank you all for joining us for a fun and informative mushroom day with fungi specialist Eiríkur Jensson.