Iceland: A Gallery Talk and Exhibit

Join us Monday, October 30, at 3 p.m. in Special Collections for a gallery talk about an exhibit  on “Iceland.” On hand to talk about items on display will be Peter Gorman and Todd Michelson-Ambelang, guest exhibit co-curators (and both expert in matters Icelandic). Gorman, head of the UW Digital Collections Center, played a lead role in such pioneering projects as the Icelandic Online Dictionary (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/IcelOnline); Michaelson-Ambelang is a subject librarian in Memorial Library for Scandinavian humanities, among many other fields, and teaches in the Nordic program on campus.

Exhibit on Display:

July 10 through November 8, 2017

With the Libraries’ acquisition of Chester Thordarson’s collection in the late 1940s came many titles in Icelandic and about Iceland. Guest exhibit curators Peter Gorman and Todd Michelson-Ambelang have drawn on the Thordarson Collection, as well as other holdings of Special Collections, Memorial Library, Mills Music Library, and the Wisconsin Historical Society, to illustrate Iceland’s natural history, folklore, literature, print culture, and religion. From 16th-century Icelandic Bibles to a recent “intimate portrait of Icelandic ice” by photographer Ian Van Coller, the exhibit affords a glimpse into Iceland’s stark landscape and rich culture and – we hope – encourages viewers to explore further the Libraries’ strong holdings about the land of fire and ice. A checklist is available.