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Sigrún Gyða Sveinsdóttir (1993) uses classical singing to tell stories. Making opera more accessible to the public and innovating the genre are important motivating factors to her. After training as an opera singer she therefore decided to study for a master’s degree at an institute for visual arts. In her interdisciplinary work she transforms opera into installations, performances, and films.
In the opera performance Skjóta (2024), a short film of which is shown a Prospects, Sveinsdóttir uses football as a metaphor for a possible action to avoid a climate catastrophe. As the world’s most popular sport, football is an important social adhesive and an emotional outlet. It fosters a sense of solidarity and team spirit that so far has been missing in climate discussions. Sveinsdóttir wonders whether the primal emotions unleashed during a match could also be harnessed for other purposes.
The film focuses on half-time, the fifteen minutes dividing the football game in two. For spectators this is a time of waiting, but for players it marks a crucial opportunity for changing tactics. Sveinsdóttir created an opera for a local football team in her native Reykjavik. At half-time the players quote the writer Samuel Beckett: ‘They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.’ If life is a game, Sveinsdóttir says, the first half is birth, the second half death, and half-time is life itself. Will we wait until the climate disaster hits us, or are we brave enough to change course during half-time, inspired by our teammates?
Text: Esmee Postma
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)