Emma Geiger: Til Íslands

Emma Geiger: Til Íslands
Jun 10, 2026 – Oct 2, 2026

United States United States — Art Center
1317 W. Pettigrew St.
Durham, NC 27705

The Duke Center for Documentary Studies presents Til Íslands by Emma Geiger, on view from 10 June through 2 October 2026, an exhibition that traces dislocation and reconnection with the Icelandic landscape after more than a century of separation. In the summer of 2025, Geiger returned to the land left behind by her great-great-grandmother in 1888, documenting the delicate experience of becoming reacquainted with a landscape and people in the midst of dramatic environmental change.

The exhibition features work created at her family's farm on Lake Apavatn, in western Iceland, and at the Nes Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, on the northern coast. Still and moving images, phytograms of plants, seaweed, and wool, and a quilt naturally dyed with lupine, rhubarb, and lichen each reflect impressions of the Icelandic landscape and identity. The work was shot on 8mm and 16mm film, along with cameraless imagery created by placing organic materials directly on the film stock, inviting viewers into a conversation between past and present in which plants, animals, water, and people all take part.

Geiger, from Hopkinton, New Hampshire, is an artist, photographer, and musician working with natural materials and analog processes. She holds an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Art from Duke University and a graduate certificate in Visual Storytelling from the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. In 2025, she was awarded the Cassilhaus Biannual Travel Fellowship for her documentary project exploring her ancestral connection to Iceland. The idea, first proposed in 2018, took shape over years of research and persistence before becoming this exhibition.

"My great, great grandparents were from Iceland and came to New Jersey in 1888, but I didn't have much family context about them or about what their lives were like there," Geiger has said. "That curiosity drove me to want to go and explore and learn about that side of the family." Between 1870 and 1914, approximately 14,000 Icelanders emigrated to North America, driven by crop failures, famine, disease, and lack of personal freedom. The year 1888 marked a peak in this exodus, with emigration dropping sharply in subsequent years.

Across her visual work and music, nostalgia, solitude, and a lifelong relationship with the natural world remain central. Geiger writes and performs music and has released two EPs—Haven (2022) and Reverse Bloom (2024). The exhibition closes with a screening of her experimental documentary short film on 10 September, offering a final chance to experience the work that brings together photography, moving images, phytograms, and textiles made with natural dyes to explore ancestry, place, and environmental change across generations.

Image: © Emma Geiger


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