NordenBladet —Preparations are already underway for the filming of True Detective: Night Country, the show’s fourth season, which will be filmed in Iceland.
Season four of the show was the green light in June 2022, and preparations are underway to find scene locations in Iceland before the actual filming takes place.
In May, Iceland’s Minister of Culture and Business Affairs, Lilja Alfreðsdóttir, proposed a bill to ensure the repayment of productions costs of larger media projects that are shot in Iceland might go as high as 35%, which, once passed, will hopefully lead to more filming projects coming to Iceland.
The plot of season four of True Detective is set in Alaska and follows detectives Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro as they investigate the disappearance of six men from a research station.
For season four, Judie Foster will play the lead role, with Kali Reis starring opposite her.
NordenBladet —On 7th May, Reykjavík City Museum will be opening a new exhibition as part of a continuation of The Settlement Exhibition, which represents Reykjavík’s history from settlement to the present day.
The exhibition looks at the city’s history, which sheds light on the resident’s daily life, and the Zeitgeist throughout the centuries is brought into focus. The approach of the display is to reach all users of the museum in the best way possible.
With this new display, the importance of Aðalstræti* as the center of Reykjavík’s history is furthermore emphasized. The Reykjavík City Museum will be in the foreground in the heart of the old city center and surroundings. All this is a significant lever of the oldest street of Reykjavík and a milestone in the city’s cultural life.
The festival will be open from 13:00, with various opening day celebrations, including a street theatre at 13:10, which will be repeated at 14:30. The Vikings from Rimmugýgur will show martial arts, and women from the Icelandic Handicraft Association will walk around the area in beautiful national costumes. The Vintage Car Association members will park their luxurious cars, and dancers will show Lindy hop. There will also be an opportunity to relax in summer chairs at Ingólfs square.
The Reykjavík City Museum is located at Aðalstræti 10 in Reykjavík.
More info: reykjavikcitymuseum.is Featured image: The Settlement Exhibition Family Area (Reykjavík City Museum)
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Aðalstræti, (“Main Street”) is Reykjavík’s oldest street. Ingólfur Arnarson’s farm is generally considered to have been situated at the southern end of the street, which must then have been the path he walked along down to the sea. While Reykjavík was small, Aðalstræti was the main street, lined with the homes of influential people, the meeting house and the town’s main well, Ingólfsbrunnur (“Ingólfur’s well”), outside the present No.9. One of the oldest buildings in Reykjavík built around 1762, is No. 10, which is from the time of Skúli Magnússon.
NordenBladet —According to Iceland’s state holding company, ISFI, the country is set to sell its sixty-five percent stake in Íslandsbanki over the next two years.
In 2021, Iceland sold off thirty-five percent of its ownership in Íslandsbanki, which was the country’s largest-ever IPO. Now, the ISFI has announced that it has formally submitted the sale proposal to the Finance Ministry.
The current market value of the band is around $1.95 billion, which has risen by thirty percent since June’s initial public offering.
The ISFI has stated that it would only sell the stake if market conditions worked in its favour, with a part of the proceeds going towards funding the country’s infrastructure.
Islandsbanki’s current share is roughly a third of the domestic market.
NordenBladet —Bitcoin miners in Iceland have recently had their power cut by Landsvirkjun, the National Iceland electrical company Land, due to a variety of issues at a power station.
According to a representative at Landsvirkjun, a series of issues, including a problem at a power station, low hydro-reservoir levels and accessing energy from an external supplier, have caused a reduction in energy allocations to southwestern Bitcoin miners.
The three main Bitcoin mining companies that have facilities in the country comprise of Hive Blockchain Technologies, Genesis Mining and Bitfury Holding.
For just under a decade, Bitcoin miners have been seeking the benefits of environmentally friendly Bitcoin mining in Iceland. Cloud Hashing moved around 100 Bitcoin miners to the country in 2013. Then in 2017, Austria’s HydroMiner GmbH raised just under $3 million to install mining rigs directly attached to Icelandic power plants.
Due to Iceland’s abundance of geothermal energy, Bitcoin miners have been attracted to the country for its cheap renewable energy supply.
NordenBladet —The CARTA Outstanding Artistic Achievement and the Judge’s Choice for Best Oracle Deck went to father-daughter artist team Haukur Halldorsson, who worked on all the illustrations, and Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir who wrote the book accompanying the cards. The standard was exceptional this year, according to the International Tarot Foundation, who gave out the CARTA Awards, and the competition was made tougher by taking through a smaller number of nominees than in previous years.
The International Tarot Foundation (ITF) was founded in 2015 with a desire to make a positive difference in the Tarot community and is responsible for the annual CARTA Awards.
Published last year, the Yggdrasil Divination Deck was in the making for a long time, and it is the brainchild of artist Haukur Halldorsson, who got his daughter to work with him on the book that comes with the cards and explains how to use them and the story behind each of the 81 cards.
Yggdrasil is Based on the powerful mythology of the Norse, this 81-card divination deck brings the wisdom of the ancients into the life of the user.
The artists intricate pen and ink drawings are soulful representations of the Eddas.
For those that want to see more about the artist Haukur Halldórsson can visit his website www.haukurhalldorsson.art and Gunnhildur can be found at www.this.is/gunnhildur.
NordenBladet —According to Statistics Iceland, the third quarter of 2021 saw a record number of births in over a decade.
Between July and September 2021, a total of 1310 children were born in Iceland, increasing the population by 3260 to a total of 374,830 people.
Out of the population, inhabitants in the Reykjavík capital region numbered 240,000, while 134,780 people are living in other parts of the country.
During the third quarter, roughly 2530 people migrated to Iceland. Net migration for Icelandic citizens was 340, while it was 2190 for foreign nationals. Immigrants of Icelandic citizenship during this period mainly came from Denmark, Norway, or Sweden, with the most non-Icelandic migrants coming from Poland.
For people emigrating, the largest group of foreign citizens moved to Poland, while Sweden was the most popular destination for Icelandic citizens to move to.
NordenBladet —As reported by RÚV, the Icelandic National Registry shows that Iceland’s population has increased by around 6,000 since December 2020, marking a total of 374,704 people residing in the country.
Out of that number includes 2,500 more foreign nationals, which makes up 53,973 people, or 14.4% of Iceland’s population. The number of Icelandic citizens has increased by 3,489, which is in line with the usual increase of 1.1%
During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration from Poland slowed but has since increased. Out of all the foreign nationals living in Iceland, Poles are the most populous, totaling just over 21,000 people.
The second most populous foreign nationality is Lithuanian, with 4,738 individuals. For U.S. citizens, this increase has risen by 16.1% in the last ten months.
NordenBladet —A new bill has been introduced by the Danish government that will ban prisoners with life terms from entering new romantic relationships from persons outside of the prison system.
Under the new proposed law, prisoners will only be allowed to remain in contact with those close to them within the first 10 years of their sentence. The purpose of this law is to counter the groupie culture associated with long-term prisoners.
The law was proposed after it came to light that a 17-year-old girl had fallen in love with Peter Madsen, a convicted killer who has been serving a life sentence since 2018.
Danish Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup explained that relationships like this “must obviously be stopped” and added that prisoners “should not be able to use our prisons as dating centers or media platforms to brag about their crimes.”
Haekkerup followed up by stating, “We have seen disgusting examples in recent years of prisoners who have committed abominable crimes contacting young people in order to gain their sympathy and attention.”
This new law will also pull the plug on long-term prisoners having the freedom to talk about their crimes via social media or other entertainment ventures such as podcasts.
NordenBladet —Iceland has launched the world’s largest plant that turns carbon dioxide captured from air into rock. In a joint effort between Iceland’s Carbfix and Switzerland’s Climeworks, the plant is set to suck 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the air every year once operating at total capacity.
The plant uses fans to draw air into a collector, which is then collected by filtered material. Once the material is filled with carbon dioxide, the collector is closed and the temperature is raised to release the carbon dioxide from the material. From there, the carbon dioxide is mixed with water and then injected into nearby basalt rock at around a depth of 1000 meters, where it is then mineralized.
The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka,” meaning “energy”, comprises four units, each made up of two metal boxes that resemble shipping containers.
Orca is among the first initiatives to capture and store carbon as an important tool to help fight climate change. Bloomberg reported that the cost is between US$10m and US$15m to build. It is estimated that Orca will capture 4000 tons of CO2 per year, making it the world’s biggest climate-positive facility to date.
