Saving Iceland

The Stop the Dams mega concert, featuring a once in a lifetime collection of artists, was a huge success. At the concert the dates to the next protest camp at the Kárahnjúkar project were announced, 21st July. Hundreds if not thousands of Icelanders are expected to attend. The destruction will be stopped!

Almost 6,000 people partied in protest against the devastation of Iceland’s wildernesses on January the 7th.

The lineup included KK, Björk and Zeena, Múm, Sigur Rós, Magga Stína, Rass and Dr. Spock, Damien Rice, Mugison, Lisa Hannigan, Hjálmar, Ghostigital, Damon Albarn (from Blur), Ham, and Egó. Performance artists and film-makers were also among the nearly two hundred artists that contributed to the event.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian (13 Feb ’06), Björk had this to say about politics and the dam:

“In elections in Iceland I have always been an abstainer. It seems like politics is such a small bundle of self-important people, who don’t have much to do with things I’m interested in. Or something. But then, obviously, when you get older you realise that they do have a lot to say, right? Maybe I would just like to think there are other angles than that. For example, I got involved in a concert in Iceland a month ago, which protests (against) building huge dams in the country. Environmental (politics) aren’t any more a left, green, hippy thing. It’s something that concerns everyone, cross-politically. I guess I’m more on that page than party politics.” (Added 13 April 2006)