Friðrik Steinn Friðriksson
ÍS/EN
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Sound installation · 2021

Ómsveppir

Aluminium mushrooms that invite visitors to play in the forest.

Role and collaboration
Design with Kristín María Sigþórsdóttir.
Location
Árhólminn, Elliðaárdalur, Reykjavík
Year
2021
Material
Aluminium
Three aluminium mushrooms of different heights in a forest clearing in Elliðaárdalur.
Image from Elliðaárstöð’s website.

Visitors can play the mushrooms with a tree branch.

Two people sit beside the aluminium mushrooms in the forest clearing.
The mushrooms at human scale. Image from an Elliðaárstöð presentation, 3 March 2022.

The installation offers a reason to slow down and listen. Its tones become part of the sounds of the place, alongside birdsong and the river. Visitors create their own sound piece by moving between the mushrooms and striking them.

Aluminium mushrooms of different sizes stand among the trees in a forest clearing.
The mushrooms are spread across the clearing, inviting visitors to walk between them and play. Image from Terta’s website.

Ómsveppir was installed as part of Man and the Forest, an Elliðaárstöð and Reykjavík Energy project marking 70 years of tree planting in the valley. Terta invited three design teams to create installations exploring the relationship between people and nature.

Listen to the designers

Kristín María and I discuss Ómsveppir in Elliðaárstöð’s audio guide. In Icelandic · 7 min 14 sec · 27 August 2021.

Open the episode on Spotify