I Am From Reykjavik @ Portobello Promenade

It is a rainy Monday afternoon and a small crowd has gathered on the Promenade at Portobello. Huddled under umbrellas, they form a wide semicircle as they keep a safe distance from the crude, spraypainted square in which a lone woman is building a house. This is I Am From Reykjavik, an installation by Sonia Hughes. It is described on the artist’s website as being “made so I can declare pockets of the world free for me, ergo you, to be.” It is a small house, just big enough for one. It faces away from the crowd towards the sea. Inside is a tiny table, on which is a box of strawberries, their colour striking against the grey of the day. 

The construction process is not choreographed or overly rehearsed. While the artist clearly knows what she’s doing, this isn’t performative or dancelike – she’s building a house. The damp air swells and deforms the wooden pieces, some of which are big enough to be awkward for a single person to move. The longer you watch, the more it begins to feel strange, voyeuristic, to remain silently behind the fourth wall. Every now and then, people move to offer help, stepping into the artist’s space and striking up a conversation. We never see more than one person do this at a time; there’s a real sense of privacy and communion around the tiny house as its skeleton is stood up and slowly filled in. Everyone waits for the person in front of them to say their goodbyes before stepping forward. Everyone wants to talk about home. 

With I Am From Reykjavik, Hughes manages to be at once open and closed, serene and defiant. The installation is deceptively simple, its emotional power only becoming apparent when you take the time to sit with the house, with the artist, on the rainy promenade with cyclists and dog-walkers flickering through the space. Behind me, a small boy passing with his family asks: “What are they building? Is it a boat?” With the absolute confidence of the very young, his sister replies, “I think it’s an ark.”

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The final presentation of I am from Reykjavik is at Holyrood Park, 26 Aug, 10am-6pm, free

festival.summerhall.co.uk/events/i-am-from-reykjavik/