Reykjavik Street Art City
Globetrotters August Challenge: Storefronts — Shop Windows — Murals — Graffiti — Public Art — Found Art — Keflavik Airport
As August rapidly comes to a close, I don’t want to leave the challenge without a mention, or in this case a small gallery of images, of the street art I’ve been lucky enough to appreciate in Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland.
In fact, the city, like the country, has become my favourite place to visit. In fact, if I could live anywhere but Tokyo or Toronto for a year… but that’s a subject for another time.
My wife and I first visited Iceland drawn to the pale Arctic beauty, convulsed by volcanoes and glacial waterfalls into a living, ever-changing landscape of rock, ice, and haunted emptiness.
We found what we came for in spades, as they say. But again, that is another story…
What we didn’t expect to find, but shouldn’t have been surprised to discover, is that Reykjavik, birthplace to the singer Bjork and the band Sigur Ros, is that the country’s tiny capital blooms with life and colour against the hard grey Arctic Ocean, glaciers, and mountains.
Storefronts
Of all the sites in Reykjavik, 12 Tonar deserves a special mention as the home of Iceland’s thriving indie music scene: and mecca for visiting fans. The exterior of the shop is decorated with graffiti, stickers, posters, and other realia from local bands and newly released albums. The inside is a place to drink free coffee and check out albums before purchase.
One of my favourite places in Reykjavik to spend some down time.
Shop Windows
Murals
Graffiti
Public Art
Found Art
Keflavik Airport
Again, Icelandic folktales come to life in the person of the 13 merry but mischievous Yule Lads. Spotted here at Keflavik International airport just outside Reykjavik…
Conclusion
By now, Reykjavik like all of Iceland must be one of the worst-kept secrets in adventure travel. Nevertheless, there are still places left to discover for the intrepid traveller. Ironically, one of those places is the capital city itself, which often gets overlooked by those with their eyes fixed ahead, on glaciers and volcanoes and waterfalls. For those so inclined, that leaves a whole city, well a SMALL whole city :-), to be explored by the urban adventurer. As you can see from the photos here, Reykjavik is well worth more than just a passing glance on the way to somewhere else.
I can’t wait to get back.
Shout Outs
As noted in the Shout Outs in my posts on street art in Tokyo and Toronto, there are many excellent and inspiring posts to this month’s challenge. I’ll include them below. Now, I want to link to a couple of posts which highlight more out of the way destinations, including by CosmicDancer and Krasi Shapkarova:
CosmicDancer in Ljubljana
Krasi Shapkarova in Plovdiv
Previous shout outs went to
